By Harry Kazianis
During Obama’s “great reassurance tour” in Asia this week, he should focus on the TPP and the status-quo.
In a recent televised segment for Voice of America’s On The Line here in Washington, DC, I described U.S. Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent visit to Asia as the great reassurance tour. The same can be said of President Obama’s trip to the region this week. The challenge for the President is quite simple: convince America’s allies that its “pivot” or “rebalance” to the Asia-Pacific is the real deal.
While I disagree with the president a great deal when it comes to many aspects of his domestic agenda, as well as certain aspects of his foreign policy, one thing is clear: the move to anoint Asia as the central focus of American foreign policy was a no-brainer and smart strategy. However, when one labels their foreign policy goals with the sticky term such as “pivot,” any move that can be considered counter to such a strategy invites skepticism and charges of abandonment. Will Russia’s moves against Ukraine spark a counter pivot back to Europe? Could Washington get sucked back into another war in the Middle East if Syria’s civil war were to spread? Maybe the pivot was just an all-too-clever marketing strategy, one of the best bumper sticker foreign policy slogans of all time, which set expectations way too high. While we may have to let history be the judge in the years ahead, clearly with the rise of China and trillions of trade dollars at stake, America has very pragmatic reasons to make Asia the center of its foreign policy — hype excluded.
While President Obama has a number of ways to push ahead with a carefully crafted Asia-Pacific focused foreign policy, time is not on his side and he must choose his agenda quite carefully. Here are two possible items that could help ensure a successful reassurance tour of Asia.
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