The poisonous atmosphere in Washington will put pressure on Barack Obama to cut short his Asia trip. He should ignore it.
US President Barack Obama and his national security and economic teams have done a good job in the past several months focusing on US interests in the Asia-Pacific region, and taking the case for engagement in this dynamic region to Americans. Investing political capital by explaining that promoting US interests in Asia is fundamentally linked to economic recovery and that maintaining peace and stability in the 21st century lays the foundation for policy development and commitment of resources.
Despite this outstanding effort, getting November right is essential for the United States and Obama in order to harvest the good work and intentions of his team. It will be a real test.
November presents a gruelling overseas schedule for the president: the G-20 meeting in Cannes in the first week, the APEC Leaders’ Summit in Honolulu in the second week, and a trip to visit stalwart US ally Australia and then the East Asia Summit (EAS) and US-ASEAN Leaders Meeting in Indonesia in the third week.
Politically, this is a lot of travel to be undertaking during the coming (and seemingly never-ending) showdown with Congress over funding the government. In the worst-case scenario, a decision on a continuing resolution could take place while the president is in Bali.
Domestic political staff and schedulers will hate this juxtaposition in the month that marks one year until national elections. There will be real pressure to consider cutting back the trip. However, failure to participate in these important meetings would badly undercut US national security and economic interests, effectively trading the blood, sweat, and tears of the broadly defined national security team to defend a political news cycle.
What’s at stake? In the balance lies the health of the US economy and the country’s security interests.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton carefully defined the linkage between US economic engagement in Asia and the country’s well-being at the New York Economic Club earlier this month. ‘We have to position ourselves to lead in a world where security is shaped in boardrooms and on trading floors, as well as on battlefields,’ she said.
Obama has supported this theme, and taken the importance of trade with Asia to the manufacturing heart of the country, Detroit, with Korean President Lee Myung-bak. The president explained that the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was a vehicle to create as many as 280,000 high-paying export-related jobs in the United States. His case is solid: Asia’s middle class, defined as those making more than $25,000 a year, is now more than 800 million strong. The United States has tapped only a fraction of that market to date, through free trade agreements with Australia and Singapore.
Photo Credit: White House
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Frankie Fook-lun Leung
With the KMT re-elected in Taiwan, the tension between Taiwan and Mainland is manageable for the foreseeable future. North Korea is a major head-ache. Hopefully Burma may open up. Pakistan and Afghanistan are problems for ever. Iran is critical. On the economic front, USA is monitoring closely China’s economic performance and the movement of the yuan.
Frankie Fook-lun Leung
Obama’s foreign policy has been criticized by the GOP being meek and timid. Imagine under the Bush administration the US representative to the UN, John Bolton, making kind of outrageous remarks about the international institution. Then the US foreign policy was unilateralism. America could do it alone. In fact, the USA did not. The US still needed the British to go into Iraq and the coalitional forces in Afghanistan. I think the Obama policy is more sensible and accommodating in first approaching the problem with public diplomacy. The US cannot use coercion and military forces to achieve certain political objectives in the international arena.
Frankie Fook-lun Leung
If you read the recent publications by Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and others, you will find that the State Department under the previous Bush Administration was subservient to the White House and Department of Defense. The State Department under Hilary Clinton has reasserted itself and takes the leading role on foreign policy directions. To that extent, the Obama Administration deserves credit.
Matt
Well they will not have an ally if civil war breaks out at home will they.
Frankie Fook-lun Leung
Any government, the U S especially, is by definition, a reactive institution. American elected officials do not have long-term agenda. They have to run for office after two to six years’ terms of office, depending on the office. Hence, their collective and individual attitude dictates the nation’s policy, foreign or domestic. Asia has occupied much more attention than Africa, one of the reason being the US is a Pacific nation. The Middle East has attracted more attention than Latin America. So far, Asia has not presented many problems for the Obama Administration to tackle. For those of us living in the USA, there is a growing trend among Republican voters to go back to the Monroe Doctrine. The domestic economic situation in the form of a recession also renders the current and future administration inclined to divert more attention and resources to domestic issues. As Senator Fulbright rightly said: all politics is local.
BondJ.
Words/Rhetoric are…good, but ACTIONs/DEEDs are far more better!As long as the US dare not confront China economically(for its beggar-thy-neighbor policy), then everything will be as …bad… as usual!!!