(Photo Credit: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)
(BGF) – Recently Mark Landler, writing for The New York Times, discussed President Obama’s trip to Asia in light of the U.S. relations with China. As Landler notes in the article, President Obama’s comments on the trip walk a fine line between reassuring U.S. allies, such as Japan and South Korea, without antagonizing or isolating China. While the U.S. has reaffirmed its commitment to its allies in the region, the U.S. has made it clear that it wants to avoid confrontation with China and that China should be careful not to follow in Russia’s aggressive footsteps. Avoiding conflict is in the interest of both China and the U.S. An excerpt of the article is provided below. Click here to read the full article or visit The New York Times website.
On a Trip That Avoids Beijing, Obama Keeps His Eye on China
By Mark Landler
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — On every stop of his Asian journey in the past week, President Obama has spoken to two audiences: America’s allies and China. The balancing act has become even trickier because of the sharp deterioration in America’s relations with Russia.
Perhaps no country has more to gain from a new Cold War than China, which has historically benefited from periods of conflict between the United States and Russia and, analysts say, could exploit these latest tensions to lean even harder on its neighbors in the region.
As Mr. Obama has traveled from Japan to South Korea and, now, Malaysia, he has delivered a carefully calibrated message to reassure America’s friends of its support while discouraging the Chinese from any thoughts of opening a second front on the Pacific Rim.
In Tokyo on Thursday, Mr. Obama vowed to defend Japan in a territorial dispute with China, but urged the Japanese to show restraint and insisted that he wanted solid relations with Beijing. The next day in Seoul, the South Korean capital, he pledged to defend South Korea from the renegade North, a Chinese ally, but went out of his way to enlist Beijing in that effort.
“We’re not interested in containing China,” Mr. Obama said, even as he embarked on what some experts said could be portrayed as a “containment tour,” visiting four countries that worry about Chinese expansionism while skipping Beijing itself.
“We’re interested in China’s peaceful rise and it being a responsible and powerful proponent of the rule of law,” Mr. Obama insisted. But he added, “In that role, it has to abide by certain norms.”
The president laid out a vivid case for why China should not mimic Russia’s adventurism. The escalating sanctions against Russia for its threats to Ukraine, he said, will weaken an economy already challenged by its reliance on oil and gas.
The portrait Mr. Obama painted of Russia was withering. Speaking in Tokyo, he said Russia “needs to diversify its economy, because the rest of the world is moving further and further off the fossil fuels that are the primary way that Russia is able to bankroll itself.”
By playing up Russia’s weaknesses and predicting that they will worsen because of President Vladimir V. Putin’s aggression, Mr. Obama seemed to be saying to Chinese officials who might be contemplating closer ties with Moscow: Stick with a winning team.
“The message is: ‘Don’t think that what Putin is doing in eastern Ukraine is so brilliant that you should be inspired by it. Don’t think that this is a model that could work for you,’ ” said Jeffrey A. Bader, who was the senior China adviser on the National Security Council until 2011.
Mr. Bader warned last week that a few poorly chosen phrases could turn Mr. Obama’s trip into a containment tour. But he said the president had gotten the balance right in Japan and South Korea, robustly reaffirming America’s support for its treaty allies while avoiding statements that would isolate or antagonize China.
So far, China’s reaction has been muted. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a perfunctory objection to Mr. Obama’s assertion that the American security treaty with Japan obligates the United States to protect a clump of islands in the East China Sea that are administered by Japan but claimed by both Japan and China.
But it has been silent since then, much as it abstained from the debates in the United Nations over Russia’s actions in Crimea. China, some analysts said, is content not to pick a fight with the United States at a time when events, in Asia and elsewhere, seem to be going in its favor.
Leaders in Japan and South Korea said they were reassured by Mr. Obama’s words. But among experts in both countries, there was lingering uneasiness about the depth of American resolve.
“The wording of his statements was O.K., but if you look at his demeanor and tone, he was very nuanced and trying not to get entangled in disputes with China,” said Narushige Michishita, an expert on security policy at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
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