Obama off to SE Asia for 3-nation trip
4th visit is break from ‘cliff,’ sex scandal
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is darting off to Southeast Asia to showcase a foreign policy achievement and reinforce the U.S. role as a counterweight to China.
Obama leaves Saturday for a four-day trip to Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, his first trip abroad since June and his fourth to Asia, where he has been eager to expand the U. S. footprint. It’s a brief break from dicey fiscal negotiations and a national security sex scandal that are competing with the glow of his re-election.
Freed from the constraints of campaigning, Obama is quickly re-establishing his foreign policy credentials by being the first U. S. president to visit Myanmar, also known as Burma, which was internationally shunned for decades and is now hailed for its steps toward democratization.
Obama is also attending the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, eager to secure the U.S.’s place as a major player in a region that long has operated under China’s influence. The trip underscores Obama’s goal of establishing the United States as an Asian-Pacific power, a worldview defined by 21stcentury geopolitics but also by Obama’s personal identity as America’s first Pacific president. Obama was born in Hawaii.
The White House sees the trip in historic terms, in no small part because of the breakthrough with Myanmar, but also because of its broader strategic significance.
“Continuing to fill in our pivot to Asia will be a critical part of this president’s second term and ultimately his foreign policy legacy,” said deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.
Stephen Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, cautioned that failure by Washington to resolve the so-called fiscal cliff could signal to emerging economies that the democratic system is flawed.
“That’s why countries are flirting with this notion that maybe China has it right: State capitalism plus keeping your people in line,” he recently told the World Affairs Councils of America. “That is very destructive.”
But China also has problems with corruption and a sluggish economy.
“Burma is sending a powerful signal that people are rejecting the notion that an authoritarian model is the key to development,” Rhodes said.
During the brief stop Monday in Myanmar, Obama will meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein, and deliver an address in which he will call for continued political reforms in the country.