Sun, Nov 15, 2009 page1

• China should be welcomed, not feared, Obama says

  • AP
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  US President Barack Obama yesterday declared that an era of US disengagement in the globe’s fastest-growing region was over and warned that the US and its Asian partners “will not be cowed” by North Korea’s continued defiance over its nuclear weapons and other provocations.

  Obama also said a robust China should be welcomed, not feared, as a powerful partner on urgent challenges. Addressing Americans’ worries about the economic and security threat from China’s rising might and Asians’ skepticism about US leadership, the president said: “We welcome China’s efforts to play a greater role on the world stage, a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility.”

  In a 40-minute speech, Obama offered incentives for North Korea to abandon the nuclear weapons it is believed to already have and the production program it continues in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. He outlined a possible future of economic opportunity and greater global respect, saying: “This respect cannot be earned through belligerence.”

  “It should be clear where that path leads,” Obama said. “We will continue to send a clear message through our actions, and not just our words. North Korea’s refusal to meet its international obligations will lead only to less security, not more.”

  More broadly, the president’s address to 1,500 prominent Japanese in a downtown Tokyo concert hall was intended to showcase a US that, under Obama’s leadership, seeks deeper engagement in Asia. It was the fifth major foreign address of his 10-month presidency. He reached out to locals through several personal notes that delighted his audience, including calling himself “America’s first Pacific president,” referring to his boyhood time in Indonesia and travels in Asia, and saluting the residents of Obama, Japan.

  Obama left Tokyo yesterday afternoon for Singapore, where he attended an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. After that he will visit China and South Korea.

  Acknowledging Asia’s growing power and the perceptions here of the US’ parallel decline, Obama aides had said the chief aim for his eight-day trip through Asia wasn’t so much to bring home specific “deliverables,” but to convincingly press the point that the US very much is in the Asian game.

  Obama said Washington would work hard to strengthen alliances in Asia, such as with Japan and South Korea, build on newer ones with nations such as China and Indonesia, and increase its participation with a burgeoning alphabet soup of Asian multilateral organizations.

  The involvement, the president said, is not just academic for Americans. It affects every day, top-priority issues such as jobs, a cleaner environment and preventing dangerous weapons proliferation.

  “I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home,” Obama said. “The fortunes of America and the Asia-Pacific [region] have become more closely linked than ever before.”

  Obama also sounded free-trade notes sure to be welcome in Asia, where nations are rapidly seeking agreements with each other.

  He said the US would seek to join a trans-Pacific free-trade area, formed in 2006 between Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei.

  The Trans-Pacific Partnership is seen as a starting point for a possible regional free-trade area comprising 21 countries. Obama’s announcement gives the proposal a boost.

  Obama called for harnessing China’s clout to make progress on shared interests such as weapons proliferation, a more solid global economy and climate agreements.

  “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another,” he said.

  He also said the US “will never waver in speaking up for the fundamental values that we hold dear.”

  Clearly hoping to avoid overly irritating Beijing, however, Obama named none of the many and serious specific human rights concerns with respect to China, including Tibet, where authorities have suppressed religious freedom and national aspirations.

  “Indigenous cultures and economic growth have not been stymied by respect for human rights, they have been strengthened by it,” Obama said. “Supporting human rights provides lasting security that cannot be purchased in any other way.”

  Obama’s remarks came near the start of a trip presenting him with risks at every stop.

  In Japan, the relationship with the US is on newly delicate footing after a change in leadership in Tokyo that has the Japanese moving toward greater independence from Washington and closer ties with the rest of Asia.

  Obama made Tokyo the venue for his speech, a symbolically important choice that displayed respect for Japan’s long history as the US’ chief ally in Asia and one of the region’s foremost democracies.

  After his speech, Obama had lunch with Japan’s Emperor Akihito and his wife, Empress Michiko, bowing deeply as they welcomed him to the graceful grounds of the Imperial Palace in the heart of the bustling city.

  Obama’s speech won praise from several Asian analysts.

  Shen Dingli (沈丁立), director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, welcomed the remarks about China.

  “He did not want to go to Asia to renew differences,” Shen said. “The differences are clear, everybody knows them. He wants to make clear we share some fundamental values.”

  Some in Taiwan were less impressed.

  “His stressing engagement with China will raise the question of what priority the US gives to its security treaty with Japan,” said Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), a political science professor at Soochow University.

  Also See: US president offers Myanmar better ties if it reforms
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