Obama visit to Asia seen as counterweight to China

President Barack Obama will travel through East Asia in coming days o reassure partners about the renewed US commitment to the region, with an eye both to China’s rising assertiveness and the fast-growing markets.

Police officers check a vehicle at a checkpoint near the US embassy in Tokyo on April 22, the day before US President Barack Obama arrives. The US leader will come to Tokyo for a three-day visit from April 23 for the first leg of his Asian tour. Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP PhotoShow less

TOKYO // President Barack Obama’s travels through Asia in coming days aim to reassure partners about the renewed US commitment to the region, with an eye both to China’s rising assertiveness and the fast-growing markets that are the centre of gravity for global growth.

Nearly seven months after he cancelled an Asian tour due to the US government shutdown, Mr Obama’s failure to prevent Russia from annexing Crimea has sharpened concerns that America lacks the will or wherewithal to follow through on its much-touted “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific.

“Words come easy,” said Philippine political analyst Ramon Casiple. “But US allies would want to know what help they can get when things reach a point of no return.”

The United States has been stepping up regional military deployments, but has made less progress on rebalancing through broader diplomatic and economic initiatives, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a Pacific Rim free trade agreement.

Mr Obama arrives in Tokyo on Wednesday for the first state visit to America’s closest ally in Asia by a US president since Bill and Hillary Clinton came in 1996. He will be the first sitting US president to visit Malaysia since Lyndon Johnson in 1966. Allies South Korea and the Philippines, the two other stops on his agenda, are also keen to shore up security ties.

US allies wonder if America has adequate capability to back them up in territorial rifts with China, Mr Caspile says, given Washington’s budget problems and preoccupation with crises elsewhere.

“The American objective is to reassure countries that ... America is here to stay and is going to keep a strong interest in dealing with China together with those countries,” said Koichi Nakano, a political-science professor at Tokyo’s Sophia University.

A report released last week by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged that more effort and money be devoted to upgrading alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

Striving to allay Japan’s worries over its territorial dispute with China and missile launches by North Korea, during a recent Asian tour US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel pledged two more ballistic missile defence destroyers for Japan by 2017. In a further show of solidarity, Mr Hagel rebuked Beijing for escalating its territorial dispute with Tokyo over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea that Japan calls the Senkaku islands and China calls the Diaoyu islands.

Mr Obama’s two-night stay in Tokyo in itself sends a good message, said Matake Kamiya, a professor at the National Defense Academy in Yokosuka.

“It’s important not only for the psychology of the Japanese but also for the impression given to the Chinese and North Koreans,” he said.

The US has 50,000 troops in Japan and about 28,500 deployed in South Korea, where it just concluded joint US-South Korean exercises. But Tokyo and Seoul remain at odds over a separate territorial dispute and lingering Korean resentment of Japanese aggression before and during the Second World War.

A visit by Mr Abe in December to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines 14 convicted war criminals among 2.5 million war dead, irked the US and angered both South Korea and China.

At least two members of Mr Abe’s cabinet, and dozens of other lawmakers, paid respects at the shrine just days before Mr Obama’s arrival in visits the South Korean side described as “deplorable.”

A TPP deal with Japan is vital for making headway with the other 10 countries in the trade bloc, which includes Malaysia, the third stop on Mr Obama’s tour.

As the US shifts more of its military assets into the Pacific region under new defence guidelines, it is stepping up cooperation with many South East Asian nations, including Malaysia.

Both the US and Japan have stepped up support for the Philippines, the last stop on Mr Obama’s eight-day journey, with Tokyo offering retired coastguard cutters to help fend off intrusions by Chinese naval vessels near still other disputed islands in the South China Sea.

The Philippines is negotiating with Washington for a beefed up security agreement to allow more access for US troops, ships and aircraft to detect and deter such incursions. US bases in the Philippines closed when the country ended their leases in 1992, though the two sides have an agreement allowing limited US troop visits, mainly in the south where Filipino troops are battling militants.

*Associated Press