Looking to Asia

The US plans to increase investment in diplomatic, economic and strategic partnerships in the region which will see the strengthening of bilateral security alliances and the deepening of working relationships with emerging powers, including China.

The first evidence of that came during Obama's visit to Australia where he announced the deployment of around 2,500 marines to northern Australia to serve as a stabilizing force and a counterbalance to China's growing assertiveness in the region.

The administration also plans increased engagement with regional multilateral institutions, the expansion of trade and investment across Asia, the forging of a broad-based military presence and the advancement and promotion of democracy and human rights in the region.

Writing in the November issue of the Foreign Policy Magazine, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined the shift toward Asia in an editorial titled "America's Pacific Century" in which she said that "the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not in Afghanistan or Iraq" and that one of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade would be to concentrate on investment in Asia.

"The United States will be right at the center of the action," she said.

The Asia-Pacific region, which stretches from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, now tops the US foreign policy agenda due to its increasing economic and strategic importance; the region includes many of the main players in the global economy as well as important emerging powers such as China, India, and Indonesia. Several of America's key allies, Japan and South Korea among them, are located in the region, which boasts almost half the world's population.

"At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, US commitment there is essential," Clinton said. "Our challenge now is to build a web of partnerships and institutions across the Pacific that is as durable and as consistent with American interests and values as the web we have built across the Atlantic."

Consolidating economic support

Clinton and President Obama presented their plans for strengthening the US presence in the Asia Pacific region at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting in Honolulu last week and will do so again at the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 19.

The Obama administration will be looking to seal a number of bilateral trade agreements at these meetings in an effort to consolidate the support it needs from the established and emerging economies in the region. It also hopes that new trade deals will help counter the criticism brewing at home which questions any expensive new foreign policy adventure at a time when the US is suffering domestically.

"Those who say that we can no longer afford to engage with the world have it exactly backward - we cannot afford not to," Clinton said. "From opening new markets for American businesses to curbing nuclear proliferation to keeping the sea lanes free for commerce and navigation, our work abroad holds the key to our prosperity and security at home."

Clinton said that the US economic recovery will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia. "Just as Asia is critical to America's future, an engaged America is vital to Asia's future," she said.

Military assurances to regional allies

In her editorial, the Secretary of State also stressed the importance of security alliances in the region, a view backed up by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

"The US is committed to sustaining and enhancing our military presence in the region," Panetta said in his first visit to the region last month since taking office in July, adding that the US was at a "turning point" after 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While there have been no signs that the US military plans to dramatically expand its 85,000-strong force in the Pacific, Panetta assured Washington's key security allies in the region that the US presence in the Pacific will be spared from the planned defense budget reductions of more than $450 billion (331 billion euros) over the next 10 years.

This will come as good news to those allies who inhabit a neighborhood which has grown concerned over the motives of an increasingly powerful and assertive China as well as those of the unpredictable and volatile regime in North Korea. There has been a fear among some that a more powerful China would eventually force the US out of Asia Pacific, a region where the majority of nations would prefer an expanded US presence to an increased Chinese influence.

Questions over disengagement

While this may calm the jitters in Asia, it could also create some discomfort among US allies in other areas of the world who will wonder where they stand as Washington looks to Asia.

"For much of the last century, the US focus was on Europe, something that was accentuated by the Bush administration's interests in the Middle East," Raffaello Pantucci, China expert at the European Council for Foreign Relations and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told Deutsche Welle.

"The current American administration feels that their predecessors focused too much on the Middle East while Asia's rise went unheeded," he added. "They now want to rebalance this and are consequently focusing on the Pacific. The Middle East continues to be important, but it is not the United States only interest."

Jonathan Holslag, head of research at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies (BICCS), agrees that the US will not completely turn its back on other parts of the world.

"Yet, on America's eastern flank, there is not only a shift from Europe to the Pacific, but also from Europe to Africa, where Washington is pursuing an ever-more ambitious economic and military policy," he told Deutsche Welle.

"As for instability in the Middle East or Africa, this should still be taken seriously, but apart from its direct security interests in Asia, US relations with the Asian giants will also determine to a large degree how instability in these parts of the world can be handled."

China feeling threatened

The US refocus, especially its military plans for the region, is also likely to sour the mood in Beijing, especially as Washington seeks out new and stronger bilateral security alliances and pushes for the advancement of human rights and democracy in Asia. China could well see the measures as part of a subtle framework of strategic containment and infringements on its own security interests.

"The reaction of Beijing has been tremendously careful so far but in the long run, however, this prudent posturing cannot be taken for granted," said Holslag. "China is increasingly seeing US balancing as threatening; there is a widely shared impression that the US is deliberately vilifying China and that this compromises its peaceful rise."

"So, while the political leaders in Beijing have a strong penchant for restraint and ultimately tend to back down, the mood is changing. We are getting more confrontational mindsets on both sides of the Pacific."

Secretary of State Clinton said that the US and China have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict and while China represented one of the most challenging and consequential bilateral relationships the United States has ever had to manage, an approach to Beijing grounded in reality and focused on results would be Washington's objective.

However, she warned Beijing over its lack of transparency surrounding its military expansion in the region, its lack of economic reform, and again aired her serious concerns about human rights abuses in China.

"We make the case to our Chinese colleagues that a deep respect for international law and a more open political system would provide China with a foundation for far greater stability and growth - and increase the confidence of China's partners," she said, "Without them, China is placing unnecessary limitations on its own development."

Author: Nick Amies
Editor: Rob Mudge