In Tokyo on Saturday, President Obama harkened back to the creation of what President Dwight Eisenhower labelled ‘an indestructible partnership’ based on ‘equality and mutual understanding’ between Japan and America. And as ‘America’s first Pacific President’ he promised that his ‘Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world’. On the economic front, he saw the dynamism of the Asian economy as a source of American export growth and recovery and endorsed the idea of a Trans Pacific Partnership agreement that would open these trading opportunities more widely to America and others prepared to join on. So will Obama’s visit redefine and invigorate America’s relations and strategic interests in Asia? Hugh White reminds us in this week’s lead that there is perhaps no relationship in the world that is more important than the US-China relationship, for America and for Asia as a whole. He observes that no relationship is changing faster, and none is less clear in its long-term trajectory. White worries that Obama will miss the opportunity ‘to articulate a coherent, sustainable, realistic American approach to China’s growing power’. In a related piece, Xue Chen, from the Shanghai Institute of International Studies sees understanding the Obama administration’s idea of ‘strategic reassurance’, an idea about which White is sceptical, as important to the Chinese leadership. We shall return to these issues in a series on the challenge of China over the coming months.
In Brief
President Barack Obama's visit to Singapore to participate in APEC was preceded by a stopover in Japan and will be followed by visits to China and Korea over the coming few days— his first visit to Asia since assuming the Presidency. He comes to a region that extends him much goodwill and one where, despite America's diminished international standing over the last decade, he has lifted American stocks with the promise of a more consultative, multilateral diplomacy and the engagement with America that the region still values highly for a range of very different reasons. In a series of pieces (by Funabashi Yoichi, Bill Tow and others below) this week we examine the impact of the Obama visit on America's relations with Asia and her major Asian allies and partners.