US President Barack Obama arrived in Bali, Indonesia, Thursday for the East Asia Summit (EAS) — the first time an American president has attended the annual summit, now in its sixth year. He arrived from Australia, where he had just formalised an agreement with Canberra to expand US military activity in and cooperation with Australia. That visit followed the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Hawaii the previous week, which Obama hosted. This has all the signs of a meticulously orchestrated political itinerary, but reflects a much deeper and more fundamental shift in the region.
EAS has expanded in its short existence to include almost every country in the region. Washington has not only reversed its longstanding wariness of multilateral East Asian forums, but it has embraced EAS specifically and deliberately. The United States wants EAS to serve as a decision-making body for policy in the region. Obama’s attendance is emblematic of an American strategy to address significant geopolitical realities.
The United States, which has depended heavily on maritime commerce since before its founding and which now controls long stretches of coast on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is drawn to Asian affairs by geography and economic interest. In 1980, the volume of trade across the Pacific matched for the first time in history that of trade across the Atlantic — and by 1990, had increased over transatlantic trade by half. The economic crises that followed, in Japan and in wider Asia, slowed this trend but did not reverse it. The United States cannot ignore the enormity and the long-term trajectory of Asian economic activity.
In fact, it is really the decade since the September 11, 2001 attacks that has been the anomaly. The United States obviously never left the region, but its attention was drawn elsewhere. With Washington focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, China found a vacuum in which it could manoeuvre just as Russia did in its own periphery, without drawing American attention commensurate with the strategic value of the region. But the United States is now in the process of extracting itself from entanglements that have consumed its attention and resources for a decade. And just as for Russia, that window of opportunity is beginning to close for China.
Essentially, the United States is signalling to everyone that it is turning its attention back to the region: rebalancing and rationalising its military presence while strengthening its engagement and involvement with longstanding partners and allies.
China and its potential response are impossible to ignore, regardless of Washington’s intentions. Obama’s formal address to the Australian parliament in Canberra was dominated by the topic of China. And as the power that has taken full advantage of the decade of American distraction — more so than any other country in the region — China is preparing to counter the United States’ intentions as Washington returns to the scene.
Many countries in the region — particularly those that have been on the receiving end of China’s more assertive behaviour (particularly in the South China Sea) — have begun to find the idea of an increased American presence in the region desirable as a counterbalance to China.
China perceives itself as acting within its rights, as the region’s natural power, to carve out its own space. More simply, China views itself as acting in defence of its own national interests. The United States perceives itself as returning to a region filled with key trading partners and longstanding allies to continue to advocate for specific interests — its own and those of its allies and partners. And while the Pacific Ocean is enormous, East Asia is becoming an increasingly crowded place.
Reprinted with permission from www.stratfor.com
