Home
Politics
"It's a common perception in the region that US influence has been on the decline in the last decade, while Chinese influence has been increasing," said Obama's top East Asia aide Jeffrey Bader.
"One of the messages that the president will be sending in his visit is that we are an Asia-Pacific nation and we are there for the long haul."
After refueling in Alaska, where he will address US troops, Obama's first stop will be Japan, where he will make a major address in Tokyo on Saturday.
He will seek to cement ties with new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and draw similarities between their respective crusades for political change, while dampening a row over the relocation of a US military base on Okinawa.
Obama will then debut at the Asia Pacific Cooperation forum summit in Singapore, and attend the first-ever joint meeting of a US president and leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Before departing, Obama said he would seek to try and tackle the imbalances in global growth in which Asia relies too heavily on exports for economic growth and the United States too much on spending.
Announcing a White House meeting in December to tackle America's soaring unemployment, Obama said his discussions with APEC leaders would be about "a strategy for growth that is both balanced and broadly shared.
"It's a strategy in which Asian and Pacific markets are open to our exports and one in which prosperity around the world is no longer as dependent on American consumption and borrowing, but rather more on American innovation and products."
In Singapore, Obama will also have to deal with Myanmar's suppression of democracy, which has long disrupted US ties with Southeast Asia.
After years of attempting to isolate Myanmar, Washington is now engaging the junta, but a private Obama meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein is unlikely.
It is a measure of China's rising influence that Obama's talks in Beijing will range over global questions including North Korea, Iran's nuclear program and Afghanistan.
Obama will hold a town hall meeting in Shanghai Monday, before flying to Beijing ahead of formal talks and a state dinner with President Hu Jintao on Tuesday.
He will also raise human rights, after declining to meet Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama before he had visited Beijing.
Significant breakthroughs are not expected on global warming in Obama's talks with Hu, although China and the United States are considered vital to fading hopes of a deal at UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month.
Obama wraps up the tour in South Korea, arriving on November 18 before holding talks with President Lee Myung-Bak on North Korea, climate change and trade.
Shadowing the US president throughout the trip will be his looming decision on whether to deploy thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.
The White House is stressing that Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and spent a number of childhood years in Indonesia, is familiar, and to some extent shares an Asian worldview on some issues.
Obama aides say the previous Bush administration saw ties with Asia through the prism of their global war on terror, and neglected the relationships.
As China expanded its clout, US influence suffered from the spending and borrowing binge that triggered the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Yet for all the talk of a diminished role, Washington remains a key player.
The United States is a guarantor of Asian security, with a combined 75,000 troops in South Korea and Japan and the Seventh Fleet prowling regional waters.
While the dollar is humbled and the US economy wounded, a consumer-led American recovery would revive vast export markets for Asian nations.
But Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suggested that Washington is also looking to its Asian trading partners to power demand in the meantime.
"As US households save more and the US reduces its fiscal deficit, others must spur greater growth of private demand in their own economies," Geithner said in an op-ed co-authored with his counterparts from Indonesia and Singapore and published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Image: AFP/Yuri Gripas.
"One of the messages that the president will be sending in his visit is that we are an Asia-Pacific nation and we are there for the long haul."
After refueling in Alaska, where he will address US troops, Obama's first stop will be Japan, where he will make a major address in Tokyo on Saturday.
He will seek to cement ties with new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and draw similarities between their respective crusades for political change, while dampening a row over the relocation of a US military base on Okinawa.
Obama will then debut at the Asia Pacific Cooperation forum summit in Singapore, and attend the first-ever joint meeting of a US president and leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Before departing, Obama said he would seek to try and tackle the imbalances in global growth in which Asia relies too heavily on exports for economic growth and the United States too much on spending.
Announcing a White House meeting in December to tackle America's soaring unemployment, Obama said his discussions with APEC leaders would be about "a strategy for growth that is both balanced and broadly shared.
"It's a strategy in which Asian and Pacific markets are open to our exports and one in which prosperity around the world is no longer as dependent on American consumption and borrowing, but rather more on American innovation and products."
In Singapore, Obama will also have to deal with Myanmar's suppression of democracy, which has long disrupted US ties with Southeast Asia.
After years of attempting to isolate Myanmar, Washington is now engaging the junta, but a private Obama meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein is unlikely.
It is a measure of China's rising influence that Obama's talks in Beijing will range over global questions including North Korea, Iran's nuclear program and Afghanistan.
Obama will hold a town hall meeting in Shanghai Monday, before flying to Beijing ahead of formal talks and a state dinner with President Hu Jintao on Tuesday.
He will also raise human rights, after declining to meet Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama before he had visited Beijing.
Significant breakthroughs are not expected on global warming in Obama's talks with Hu, although China and the United States are considered vital to fading hopes of a deal at UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month.
Obama wraps up the tour in South Korea, arriving on November 18 before holding talks with President Lee Myung-Bak on North Korea, climate change and trade.
Shadowing the US president throughout the trip will be his looming decision on whether to deploy thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.
The White House is stressing that Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and spent a number of childhood years in Indonesia, is familiar, and to some extent shares an Asian worldview on some issues.
Obama aides say the previous Bush administration saw ties with Asia through the prism of their global war on terror, and neglected the relationships.
As China expanded its clout, US influence suffered from the spending and borrowing binge that triggered the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Yet for all the talk of a diminished role, Washington remains a key player.
The United States is a guarantor of Asian security, with a combined 75,000 troops in South Korea and Japan and the Seventh Fleet prowling regional waters.
While the dollar is humbled and the US economy wounded, a consumer-led American recovery would revive vast export markets for Asian nations.
But Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suggested that Washington is also looking to its Asian trading partners to power demand in the meantime.
"As US households save more and the US reduces its fiscal deficit, others must spur greater growth of private demand in their own economies," Geithner said in an op-ed co-authored with his counterparts from Indonesia and Singapore and published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Image: AFP/Yuri Gripas.
