Obama, the street kid from Jakarta, knows US dominance of Asia is over

[CHIMO]

Barack Obama has embarked on his tour of four Asian countries (India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan); and you might expect him to have a full foreign-policy agenda. Relations between Japan and China have deteriorated sharply following the Japanese seizure of a Chinese fishing boat. South Korea, another stalwart American client, has much to fear from the political transitions of its mysterious neighbour.

India and Indonesia also present some complex strategic challenges. The dispute in Kashmir, which Obama identified as among his "critical tasks" in 2008, clearly saps Pakistan's commitment to America's war in Afghanistan. After two cancelled trips to Indonesia, Obama finally has the chance this week to commemorate his childhood in the country, and to re-engage his audience in the Muslim world that he first addressed in Cairo in 2009.

However, Obama insists on defining his mission in Asia in less than lofty terms. "We need to find," he wrote in an op-ed last week in the New York Times, "new customers in new markets for American-made goods." This article, which went on about trade pacts with South Korea, Indonesia's chairmanship of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), and the importance of creating thousands of American jobs, had not a word to say about the political and military role of the United States in Asia.

Visiting India, Obama has remained on message, talking about business deals and American jobs. He may be feeling a bit chastened after the setbacks in US midterm elections last week. Certainly he must stem growing unemployment as well as stimulate an economic recovery if he hopes to win a second term as president in 2012. And he may be trying to avoid the impression of being too preoccupied with abstruse foreign policy issues.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/08/obama-us-dominance-asia-over