On last Asia trip, Obama leaves uneven legacy in region

Upon taking office in 2009, Barack Obama expressed his intent to bolster ties with Asian allies in an effort to keep a rising China in check. His "pivot," in which 60 percent of the Navy's fleet was shifted to the region, drew condemnation from Beijing. In an effort to cool tensions, the Obama administration began using the less-aggressive term "rebalance."

Even as hostility grew, economic relations between China and the US continued to thrive. Trade between the two countries totaled more than $600 billion in 2015. On the other hand, the US’s trade deficit with China hit a record high of $366 billion that year, drawing criticism from many in the United States, such as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The Obama administration was able to improve ties with other countries in the region, including India, Myanmar and Vietnam. On the other hand, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive regional trade deal signed by the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations, has drawn protests in numerous countries and is currently stuck in the US Congress.

North Korea has grown increasingly aggressive during Obama's presidency. The country conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and has launched several other missiles since, stoking fears in South Korea and Japan. US officials have not been able to influence their counterparts in China to halt North Korea's militarization.

Several territorial disputes have flared up since Obama's pivot in 2009, especially in the South China and East China seas, where China's claims to respective islands overlap with those of Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations. The United States has taken to using its military assets more often to counter what officials perceives as aggressive tactics by China.

Regional tensions were exacerbated when a court in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, which had argued that China violated its territorial rights. Yet, despite the US's military cooperation with the Philippines, the island nation's newly elected president, Rodrigo Duterte (above), has been vocally opposed to Washington's foreign policy in the region.

One of the high points of the US-China relationship under Obama was the historic agreement reached at the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, took steps to cut emissions, and in doing so took a major step toward confronting global warming.

Arriving in Hangzhou for this year’s G20 summit, Obama sought to emphasize the US's cooperation with China to fight climate change. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally ratified the Paris climate change deal. Obama called it "the moment that we finally decided to save our planet." In other areas, however, relations between the two countries will likely be strained for some time to come.