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Business News/ News / World/  Obama’s strategic shift to Asia is hobbled by international crises
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Obama’s strategic shift to Asia is hobbled by international crises

Obama is expected to announce pact with Philippines that will give US ships, planes extensive access to bases there

US President Barack Obama has been forced to cancel two trips to the region because of battles with Congress. Photo: APPremium
US President Barack Obama has been forced to cancel two trips to the region because of battles with Congress. Photo: AP

Washington: US President Barack Obama is expected to announce an agreement with the Philippines next Monday that would give US ships and planes the most extensive access to bases there since the US relinquished its vast naval installation at Subic Bay in 1992.

The deal, which will be the centerpiece of Obama’s long-postponed trip to Asia that starts later Tuesday, is a modest step to reassert America’s military presence in Asia. But it could nonetheless antagonize China, which has stepped up its claims in both the South and East China seas and is currently enmeshed in a stand-off with the Philippines over a disputed clump of rocks known as Scarborough Shoal.

For Obama, it is the latest example of the deepening complexities of his efforts to shore up the strategic shift to Asia he announced three years ago and has struggled to maintain because of political pressures at home and a cascade of crises elsewhere in the world.

At a moment when Asia appears more rattled by China’s behaviour than it has in decades, America’s fractious allies question its repeated assurances that the US will be there for them. But the more Obama repeats his commitments, the more he plays into China’s narrative that his real motive is to contain its rise.

The premise of Obama’s strategy—that American power must follow its economic interests in a region where a growing middle class yearns for everything from iPhones to the new Ford Mustang—still makes sense, his advisers say. But they acknowledge that it faces acute challenges, which will demand a delicate balancing act.

“The countries in the region want the US to be present and to be a stabilizing force, but they also don’t want tension between the US and China, certainly not at a high pitch," said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.

Obama’s second-term focus on Iran, Syria, and the Middle East peace process has left Asian officials to wonder whether Washington is really committed to a larger footprint in the region.

“If there’s real rebalancing, it is hard to find," a Japanese official said recently.

Further complicating Obama’s challenge, Japan and South Korea, the economic engines that anchor America’s Pacific alliance, are barely talking to each other, as they rehash 70-year-old grievances. North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes are more active, and, arguably, more successful, than ever.

The president will have to address all these issues in the next week, including the sensitivities in the Philippines to a renewed US military presence. Much like the 2011 agreement to deploy Marines to Darwin, Australia, such a presence would theoretically give America more capacity to help its allies in territorial disputes with the Chinese.

There is little mystery to how the Chinese will likely respond to such an agreement. On a visit to Beijing this month, defence secretary Chuck Hagel listened as the Chinese defence minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan, said that China would “make no compromise, no concession, no treaty" in disputes with Japan.

“The Chinese military can assemble as soon as summoned, fight any battle and win," the general added.

Much of that is most likely bluster; the Chinese have shown no desire for direct confrontation. But administration officials and some outside experts say the Chinese may be calculating that the US does not have the wherewithal to change its focus, particularly as it wrestles with new threats in Eastern Europe.

“If the US-Russia relationship goes downhill, the Chinese will get a much easier ride," said Minxin Pei, a prominent China scholar now at Claremont McKenna College. “The US cannot afford to be tough on both Russia and China at the same time."

Obama has been forced to cancel two trips to the region because of battles with Congress (this week’s visit will make up for one postponed in October). Over time, that has exacted a cost.

“In Asia it’s not just quality time, it’s quantity time," said Christopher R. Hill, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia. “The president has been pulled in too many different directions, and I don’t think he’s developed the relationships that would show a qualitatively different US approach to the region."

Stephen W. Bosworth, Obama’s coordinator for North Korea in his first term, agreed. The rebalancing concept, Bosworth argued, “was ill-conceived and bungled in its implementation".

“What the announcement did was set up expectations that we would have a hard time fulfilling," he said. Within the administration, there is debate about how much bigger a presence in the region the US can afford. When Katrina G. McFarland, the assistant secretary of defence for acquisition, said this year that because of budget pressures, “the pivot is being looked at again, because candidly, it can’t happen", she had to retract the statement.

Such comments have turned up the pressure on Obama. He will have to re-emphasize America’s presence without inflaming the Chinese. Jeffrey A. Bader, Obama’s former top China adviser at the National Security Council, said: “The Chinese are certainly nervous about this trip: is this just going to be the grand containment tour? It doesn’t have to be."

Suspicions may be fuelled by Obama’s visit to three treaty allies: Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. While Washington is obliged to defend all three countries against attack, the treaties say nothing about a clash over disputed territory, like the Scarborough Shoal, a fishing ground now occupied by Chinese vessels.

US officials have deliberately been vague about this question, and their formal position on territorial disputes is that the US does not take sides. Filipinos would like Obama to clarify his intentions during his visit.

 ©2014/the new york times

Floyd Whaley in Manila contributed to this story.

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Published: 23 Apr 2014, 12:26 AM IST
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