Dispatch: Obama's Asia Trip and U.S. Re-engagement
Video Transcript:
Analyst Rodger Baker examines U.S. re-engagement in East Asia amid U.S. President Barack Obama's tour through the region, now in Indonesia, followed by South Korea and Japan.
Editor's Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
President Obama's in the middle of a four nation tour to Asia. He began India, is in Indonesia now, and he's going to South Korea and Japan. On this trip he's working on the bilateral relations with these countries, of course. He is going to some of the multilateral meetings like the G20 and APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), but more importantly this part of the administration's move to really expand U.S. relations with Asia.
U.S. interests in Asia are really multifaceted. Even before Obama came into office we were seeing some signs that probably around the second half of his first term, he was going to try to reinvigorate U.S. relations in the region.
Indonesia is very important for economic reasons for the flow-through of trade in the Straits of Malacca and in other areas. It also sits as the base of the South China Sea, and this becomes a very important strategic location for the United States and for its allies.
After Indonesia, Obama is heading to South Korea for the G20 meeting. This meeting is going to focus fairly heavily on the issues of currency. There are questions of a currency war that are swirling around right now. The trip to South Korea also focuses on U.S.-South Korea relations. South Korea has often been seen as kind of a second-tier partner in U.S. security relations in Northeast Asia. The South Koreans are trying to position themselves as a country that is more willing and more ready to join in a stronger relationship with the United States, take part in regional security activities, to take part even internationally.
When Obama visits Japan he's going to be dealing with both APEC and with the Japanese themselves. There's been a lot of tension between the United States and Japan since the Democratic Party in Japan took over, particularly over Okinawa and U.S. basing issues. However, in recent months an appearance of a more assertive and - even by some - observations of more aggressive activity by the Chinese in the East China Sea and even by the Russians more recently, has made Tokyo rethink its security relations with the United States and try to draw Washington back in and maybe offer its services a little more than has been doing in the past.
On this trip one of the things to note is that Obama is only going to existing or emerging U.S. allies. So, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan. From the Chinese perspective this is somewhat troubling. He's not visiting China in part because he was not invited and because Hu Jintao is going to be coming to the United States early next year. But China perceives this is in some ways as part of the U.S. encirclement of the Chinese expansion in the region. The U.S. is launching a new transpacific partnership initiative which is in some ways a counter to the Chinese ASEAN free trade agreement. The U.S. is looking to build new sets of relationships and we've expanded military contact with Vietnam, with Cambodia, in addition to our traditional allies in the region.
In general, we're seeing is that Washington is saying it's time to come back to Asia. The military will say that we've never left Asia, but the U.S.' attention to the region has certainly been much lower than it was in the past. This comes at a very interesting time because this is the same time that we see China becoming more assertive in the region, and we're seeing Russia really try to come back and say that it too needs to pay more attention to the Pacific half of Russia than it has in the past.
We expect in the coming years to see this region become much more dynamic as the three large powers position themselves as they they compete, and as we see the evolution of countries like Japan and India, Indonesia and Vietnam in this new environment
