T

he military treaty US President Barack Obama signed in Manila this week has raised the tension in Asia a notch. The fact that Obama talked at length about protecting America'€™s allies in the region on his Asian visit, which also took him to Tokyo, Seoul and Kuala Lumpur, certainly did not help cool the situation.

He irked Beijing as it is obvious to all that his speeches, and the treaty with the Philippines, targeted China, which has had series of standoffs with most of its neighbors of late over territorial claims in the North China Sea and the South China Sea.

In Jakarta, we wonder whether our friends and neighbors are giving up on diplomacy to resolve, or at the very least, to manage these tensions.

Obama'€™s Asian tour reaffirmed the US policy of '€œrebalancing'€ its military presence more toward Asia, from the Atlantic and Middle East.

While professing that the US does not take sides in territorial disputes of its allies and friends in Asia, it pledges to come to their succor if they come under attack. It claims that the stationing of American soldiers, on a rotating basis, is intended to help build the military capacity of its allies as well as for humanitarian purposes such as disaster relief operations.

Who are they kidding? Their presence is to counterweight the rising power of China.

Southeast Asia seems to take much of the brunt of the current US pivot to Asia. Already there are talks of reviving an old US airbase in U-Tapao in Thailand; Vietnam is warming up to the idea of hosting a facility for visiting US navy ships at Cam Ranh. Singapore already hosts the presence of American soldiers, as does Darwin in Australia.

The US is back in Southeast Asia, though not to the same extent as during the peak of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, but its rising presence may be abetting the tension, and not necessarily reducing it.

The fact that many of our neighbors are laying out the red carpet undermines Indonesia'€™s efforts in building greater unity through the ASEAN. An ASEAN Community in 2015 has become that much more elusive.

Indonesia as a matter of principle should not give up on diplomacy, or give in to the pressure to join its neighbors in siding with one or the other powers in the region. We have to have more faith in diplomacy. The alternative is simply unthinkable.