11/11/2009
Bangkok Post
EDITORIAL
US President Barack Obama is finally to arrive on his first visit to Asia since his historic election a year ago. Mr Obama arrives in Japan on Friday for talks with the new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, and later will be in China and South Korea. The main purpose of his trip is to attend this weekend's summit of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group. The Apec meeting is in Singapore, and will be the US leader's only stop in the Asean region.
Mr Obama's promises about restoring US interest in Asia in general and Asean in particular, have proved so far to be more talk than substance. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointedly made her first foreign visit to Asia shortly after Mr Obama took office in January. She returned in July for the annual Asean Regional Forum in Thailand.
Mr Obama's advisers have made no promises about new initiatives during his Singapore summit. But he will face questions on three main issues.
First is the disappointment in Asean, but particularly in Indonesia of why the US president failed to make good on his implied promise to go to his boyhood home on his first trip to Asia as president. Nor will it be the first time the question is asked. It was raised seriously last June, when he chose to go to Egypt to deliver his erudite and long-awaited address to the Muslim world. The contrast seemed noteworthy: an Egypt, where Mr Obama never had visited, versus the vibrant, newly emerged democracy of Indonesia, where Mr Obama lived as a schoolboy. Now the president has again chosen to skip the world's most populous Muslim nation, where he is without doubt the most popular foreigner of the age.
More seriously, Mr Obama and advisers will find it difficult to keep a straight face in Singapore while they support free trade. The US president took office owing favours to trade unions and political groups who oppose free trade. His administration has already delivered some free-trade restrictions. Since January, the White House has trumpeted "Buy American" campaigns including new laws restricting foreign textile and clothing makers. The US has begun a so-called "tyre war" with China, and of course has delivered hundreds of billions in bailout subsidies for the US auto industry and its unionised workers.
These two minuses come with a tantalising and potentially positive new US foreign policy. Most interesting to those of us in the region is the decision, already being implemented, to engage the dictators of Burma rather than simply shun them and sanction their nation. Earlier this month, the most senior US diplomat to visit Burma in at least 14 years met both Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein and the jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The meetings themselves were far more form than substance. No changes were seen in either Burma or the US because of the visit by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Kurt Campbell. But the US has clearly held out the possibility of an essential and substantive policy change. As Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said, "It's a new approach, it's a new beginning."
After nearly a year in office, it is clear Mr Obama is no miracle worker. But still he offers the brightest hope for changes in world affairs that will mean new beginnings. For Thailand, the weekend summit gives Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva another chance to talk with Mr Obama and convince him that there is a room for the US to fill in Asia in general and Asean in particular.
Mr Obama's promises about restoring US interest in Asia in general and Asean in particular, have proved so far to be more talk than substance. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointedly made her first foreign visit to Asia shortly after Mr Obama took office in January. She returned in July for the annual Asean Regional Forum in Thailand.
Mr Obama's advisers have made no promises about new initiatives during his Singapore summit. But he will face questions on three main issues.
First is the disappointment in Asean, but particularly in Indonesia of why the US president failed to make good on his implied promise to go to his boyhood home on his first trip to Asia as president. Nor will it be the first time the question is asked. It was raised seriously last June, when he chose to go to Egypt to deliver his erudite and long-awaited address to the Muslim world. The contrast seemed noteworthy: an Egypt, where Mr Obama never had visited, versus the vibrant, newly emerged democracy of Indonesia, where Mr Obama lived as a schoolboy. Now the president has again chosen to skip the world's most populous Muslim nation, where he is without doubt the most popular foreigner of the age.
More seriously, Mr Obama and advisers will find it difficult to keep a straight face in Singapore while they support free trade. The US president took office owing favours to trade unions and political groups who oppose free trade. His administration has already delivered some free-trade restrictions. Since January, the White House has trumpeted "Buy American" campaigns including new laws restricting foreign textile and clothing makers. The US has begun a so-called "tyre war" with China, and of course has delivered hundreds of billions in bailout subsidies for the US auto industry and its unionised workers.
These two minuses come with a tantalising and potentially positive new US foreign policy. Most interesting to those of us in the region is the decision, already being implemented, to engage the dictators of Burma rather than simply shun them and sanction their nation. Earlier this month, the most senior US diplomat to visit Burma in at least 14 years met both Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein and the jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The meetings themselves were far more form than substance. No changes were seen in either Burma or the US because of the visit by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Kurt Campbell. But the US has clearly held out the possibility of an essential and substantive policy change. As Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said, "It's a new approach, it's a new beginning."
After nearly a year in office, it is clear Mr Obama is no miracle worker. But still he offers the brightest hope for changes in world affairs that will mean new beginnings. For Thailand, the weekend summit gives Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva another chance to talk with Mr Obama and convince him that there is a room for the US to fill in Asia in general and Asean in particular.
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