Obama to showcase US clout in Southeast Asia
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama hopes to demonstrate rising US clout in Asia on his first foreign trip since his re-election, with a tour of three countries including a once unthinkable stop in changing Myanmar.
Obama, who has cast himself as the first "Pacific president" with his roots in Hawaii and boyhood years in Indonesia, will head on Saturday to longtime US ally Thailand and meet Asia's top leaders at a summit in Cambodia.
It will be the first trip by a US president spent entirely in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War, part of Obama's effort to focus on the dynamic and largely US-friendly region where several nations worry about a rising China.
Obama in his first term launched a so-called "pivot" to Asia, which included greater military cooperation with Australia, Thailand and Vietnam and a plan to shift the bulk of the US navy to the Pacific by 2020.
"Continuing to fill in our pivot to Asia will be a critical part of the president's second term and ultimately his foreign policy legacy," Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters.
Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, said that Obama's trip showed that the United States was "not only rebalancing towards Asia; we're also rebalancing our efforts within Asia."
Donilon said it was "impossible to overstate Asia's importance" to the United States as the continent is expected to account for nearly half of the world's economic growth outside the United States through 2017.
"The fact is today that there is a tremendous demand and expectation of US leadership in the region," Donilon said.
Surprising skeptics, Myanmar launched reforms after its nominal end to nearly half a century of army rule last year. President Thein Sein, a former general, released political prisoners, opened dialogue with ethnic rebels and allowed once-confined opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi to enter parliament.
Some human rights groups said that Obama should have waited, arguing that he could have dangled the prospect of a visit as leverage to seek more progress such as the release of remaining political prisoners estimated to number in the hundreds.
Danny Russel, Obama's top aide on Asia, countered: "This is not a victory celebration, this is as barn raising."
"We want to show the people of Burma that there are benefits to be had from the hard work and move some of the leaders off the fence and into the reform program," he said.
Thailand is the oldest US ally in Asia, famously offering elephants to Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War. But the kingdom has been consumed by internal disputes, which escalated in 2010 into violence that left more than 90 people dead.
Michael Green, who held Russel's position under former president George W Bush, said that Thailand -- which proudly preserved independence even in World War II -- has historically kept a balance between major powers.
"Thailand has always sort of gone with the breeze. And China's very much the breeze now," said Green, the senior vice president for Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The three nations that Obama will visit are "sort of the three troubled children of 'the pivot'. Each has a complicated relationship with the US and with China," Green said.
While few expect Thailand to shift wholescale to Beijing, Cambodia has been China's staunchest supporter in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and was seen as scuttling an initiative on disputes in the South China Sea when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited for regional talks in July.
Obama will be the first sitting US president to visit Cambodia. Samantha Power, his adviser on human rights, said Obama was visiting for the East Asia Summit and was concerned about Cambodia's "very worrying" direction on rights.
On the summit's sidelines, Obama will meet China's former premier, Wen Jiabao, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan, whose relations with Beijing have grown tense due to territorial claims.
Japan is one of five treaty-bound US allies in the region. In a veiled reference to China, Donilon said Washington's alliances were a key asset.
When "you think about our competitors and possible competitors around the world, you come to the conclusion that no other nation in the world has the set of global alliances that the United States has," he said.
Obama to showcase US clout in Southeast Asia - Channel NewsAsia
Looks like Uncle Barack is coming to claim his domain and let's hope he doesn't mess the area up like his predecessors did in other parts of the world.
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Panetta to outline US policy shift to Asia at ASEAN
BANGKOK:
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will outline Washington's strategic shift to the Pacific and a tentative rapprochement with Myanmar when he meets with his Asian counterparts at a conference in Cambodia on Friday, according to officials.
Wrapping up a week-long tour of Southeast Asia that comes before President Barack Obama visits the region next week, Panetta will join 10 fellow defence ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Cambodian resort of Siem Reap.
In his talks,
Panetta is expected to discuss America's careful steps toward reopening ties with Myanmar's military as well as Washington's bid to "rebalance" to the Asia-Pacific.
The US tilt to Asia as well as warming relations with Myanmar reflect a concerted effort by the Obama administration to assert American influence in the face of China's growing economic and military might.
A senior US defence official told reporters travelling with Panetta that the
United States was open to reviving military ties with Myanmar, but that the Pentagon would proceed at a deliberate pace.
US officials are considering cooperating with Myanmar's armed forces on non-lethal programmes focused on military medicine, education and disaster relief exercises.
The activities would be "limited in scope" at the outset, the official added. "We'll grow as appropriate over time. We need to see reform, we need to see continued progress."
The overtures to Myanmar's leaders are a source of concern for China, as Myanmar -- along with North Korea -- had remained firmly in Beijing's orbit and off-limits to the Americans until now, analysts and officials said.
"From China's perspective, enhancing US-Burma (Myanmar) security ties takes on greater significance because it was one of the few countries in China's periphery that Beijing had a near monopoly on military, economic, and diplomatic relations," Andrew Scobell, an expert at the US-based RAND Corporation think tank, told AFP.
In his discussions in Cambodia, Panetta also is expected to renew US appeals for a peaceful, multilateral resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China, which have tended to pit China against its neighbours over potentially resource-rich waters.
"We continue to be closely monitoring both the situations in the South China sea and the East China Sea," said the senior defence official.
"Our message is going to be consistent with what we've said in the past, which is we don't take sides, we want these disputes solved peacefully in accordance with international law but we do take issue with coercion," the defence official said.
On Thursday, Panetta signed a "joint vision" statement in Bangkok reaffirming the US-Thailand military alliance for what he called a new era.
Panetta's trip came as China unveiled a new leadership team headed by Xi Jinping, a transition closely followed in Washington.
Next week, President Obama will be the first sitting US president to visit Cambodia as well as Myanmar, following a series of dramatic political changes in a country emerging from decades of military rule.
Panetta to outline US policy shift to Asia at ASEAN - Channel NewsAsia
Obama will go to bed will a military regime if it suits his agenda
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Special Report: Myanmar military's next campaign: shoring up power
(Reuters) - Aung Thaw was a teenager when he joined Myanmar's armed forces, which seized power in 1962 and led a promising Asian nation into half a century of poverty, isolation and fear.
Now 59, he has a new mission as deputy minister of defense: explaining why the military intends to retain a dominant role in a fragile new era of democratic reform.
In a two-hour interview with Reuters, the first by a leader of the armed forces with the international media since Myanmar's historic reforms began last year,
Aung Thaw depicted the military as both architect and guardian of his country's embryonic democracy.
That's why the military has no plans to give up its presence in parliament, he said, where its unelected delegates occupy a quarter of the seats. Nor will the military apologize for its violent suppressions of pro-democracy protests in 1988 and 2007 that led to crippling Western sanctions.
"The government is leading the democratization," said Aung Thaw. "The Defense Services are pro-actively participating in the process."
The military will also retain a leading role in Myanmar's economy through its holding companies, according to the firms, which are among the country's biggest commercial enterprises.
Aung Thaw's comments came ahead of Barack Obama's visit to Myanmar on November 19 - the first by a serving U.S. president to the country also known as Burma.
The generals' reluctance to loosen their grip on power and acknowledge past abuses raises fundamental questions for this strategic country at Asia's crossroads: Can Myanmar be reborn after decades of dictatorship without the military itself also undergoing profound change? And is the United States too quickly embracing the generals?
full story:
Special Report: Myanmar military's next campaign: shoring up power | Reuters
It sounds like the military leaders want to get in on the get rich schemes and hold onto power as well. Can the west, through various NGOs, installs their favorite daughter in the form of regime change?
