New 'pivot' in foreign policy towards Asia

Born in Hawaii, raised for some of his childhood in Indonesia, US President Barack Obama has since his election wanted to be known as America's first "Pacific President". Until recently, he has not done much to earn the title. That, Obama declares, is now changing.

Allies in Asia have complained about only intermittent American attention to their region. But in a speech to Australia's parliament on November 17, Obama announced that America is back. "Let there be no doubt: in the Asia-Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in." It was, he said, a "deliberate and strategic decision": America was "here to stay".

Senior administration officials back up the president. They talk of a new ‘pivot' in foreign policy towards Asia. They say that much of Obama's first term has been spent dealing with ‘inherited' issues, many of them linked to former US president George W. Bush's war on terror.

But America is now (almost) out of Iraq, and there is a deadline to extricate itself from Afghanistan. So Asia is coming more into focus. Of course, old problems, such as Iran, can rapidly force themselves back to the top of the president's in-tray, and old European allies still command the most trust. But insiders hope that the Pacific will be the new strategic focus.

The new commitment has both an economic and a security aspect. The Asia-Pacific region is the world's most economically vibrant, a point underscored by Europe's travails. It may also prove to be the source of the greatest threats to security over the coming decades. In both respects, a resurgent China is at the heart of things.

Hosting an Asia-Pacific trade summit in Hawaii a few days earlier, Obama laid out the case for open, liberal trade in Asia. He invited China to share in this vision, while jabbing at it for perceived protectionism. In Canberra, Australia's capital, the president dwelt on security. He and the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, announced that America will put rotating units of Marines in Darwin, in northern Australia, for training and exercises. About 250 will arrive next year, rising to 2,500.

Peaceful rise

This is Crocodile Dundee territory, but the move is more about facing up to a distant dragon than to the local saltwater crocs. It is intended to drive home the administration's new and insistent message: that withdrawal from Afghanistan and wide-ranging defence cutbacks do not mean America is retreating from Asia. America is around to ensure that China's ‘peaceful rise' remains just that.

Americans hope that the Australian deal will set an example of closer cooperation with other allies, especially in South-East Asia. There, islands in the South China Sea, beneath which oil and gas are thought to lie, are subject to several disputes involving China and South-East Asian neighbours. These see growing Chinese intimidation over the claims.

As part of a concerted diplomatic push, on November 16, Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, was on the deck of an American warship in Manila Bay in the Philippines, to strengthen the two countries' military ties.

Clinton talks of ‘updating' relations with five treaty-bound allies in the region: Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand.

Obama is adamant that none of this is designed to stop China's ‘peaceful rise', which he welcomes. Rather, the new commitment is to reassure the region. Shortly before Obama's visit, the deputy chief of the People's Liberation Army happened to be in Australia for annual bilateral talks. His hosts briefed him about the Darwin plan, explaining it as continuation of a long-standing military partnership under the ANZUS Treaty signed in 1951.

It was just ‘hedging' and ‘insurance'— anything but ‘containment'. China may beg to differ — though all a spokesman has yet said is that: "It may not be quite appropriate to intensify and expand military alliances and may not be in the interest of countries within the region."

Not everybody among America's Asia-Pacific allies is happy either. Hugh White, a former defence official now at the Australian National University, worries about "America's muscular approach to China's growing power". He warns against the emergence of a "structurally adversarial relationship" between China and the US and its regional friends. The hope is that ‘balancing' does not have to come to that.

— The Economist