Obama's eyes on China, not ASEAN: Experts

Tony Hotland ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Washington   |  Sun, 11/09/2008 8:47 PM  |  World

The new U.S. administration under president-elect Barack Obama may engage Asia by aggressively getting China on the same boat on multilateral issues, but will embrace a wait-and-see approach on Southeast Asia, noted U.S. foreign policy experts say.

"The new administration's success in Asia will depend on the degree of when they achieve Chinese cooperation on current issues such as Myanmar, North Korea and Iran's nuclear aspirations, energy security and the current international financial situation that's gone off the charts," said Jeffrey A. Bader, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute.

Bader said China was usually passive and reactive to UN or EU proposals on the current economic crisis, so the U.S. would need to see more mutual assurance and a greater Chinese role in restructuring the financial system.

"The U.S. has been skewed on Asia in the last few years due to much focus on Iraq," he said.

"The next administration still has to deal with that, so rebalancing the attention will take some time. A President Obama would look at the major players on the issues of security, climate change, and others, and these countries, such as China, Japan and Australia will probably get more attention."

Michael J. Green, senior adviser and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. approach on Asia, particularly China, would largely be a continuation of the current situation -- balancing and maintaining power in the region by bonding with capital rich Japan, Australia and Singapore.

But there are important problems to look into, said Green, especially what many see as degrading ties with Japan after the U.S. recently removed nuclear-hungry North Korea from its terrorism blacklist.

"In the past year, there's been a drift especially with Japan currently not having a sustainable power base following recent power successions. It's been difficult for the U.S. to make hard decisions," he said.

North Korea is blamed for abducting 17 Japanese citizens, although support groups for the families of the missing say the real figure may be more than 100 over the last four decades. The U.S. removed the state from its list in exchange for disabling its main nuclear plant and allowing inspectors full access.

Going down Southeast Asia, an Obama presidency looks likely to act on the idea of launching a U.S.-ASEAN Summit that was initially brought up by President George W. Bush, said Green.

"There's a broad feeling among Asian experts that the U.S. overlooks Southeast Asia," he said.

"One of the things holding the U.S. back is Myanmar. The U.S. wants to see more sense of engagement within ASEAN on the issue of Myanmar."

Satu Limaye, director of the East-West Center in Washington, said the regional bloc's goal of establishing an ASEAN Security Community by 2015 was still uncertain.

"(The ASEAN Security Community) is a big idea, but Washington is not sure yet on what the mechanisms will be," he said.

Limaye added one opportunity the U.S. should continue getting active in was small-scale multilateral cooperation, most notably in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

"Indonesia is a major partner in that field, and for a lot of other reasons is of growing importance," he said.

On improving ties with the Muslim world, bringing an end to the conflict in the Middle East would have an extremely significant impact in helping repair the superpower's tarnished image, said Douglas H. Paal, vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.