Obama to make historic Burma visit during three-day Asia trip

President to meet Aung San Suu Kyi on fifth trip to Asia since he took office, part of long-term US focus on the region

guardian.co.uk, Ewen MacAskill in Washington, Saturday 17 November 2012

President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews air force base,
Maryland. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP

Barack Obama on Saturday left for his fifth trip to Asia since becoming president, part of a long-term re-balancing of US strategy away from Europe and the Middle East.

The highlight of the trip will be a potentially emotional meeting with the Burmese dissident and human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi at her home in Rangoon, a visit few in America would have thought possible when Obama was first voted into office in 2008.

Just as important as trying to help Burma emerge as a fully-fledged democracy are his trips to Thailand and Cambodia, which is hosting a meeting of east Asian leaders, including those of Japan and China.

The Obama administration has been open about the dangers to US dominance posed by the rapid rise of China.

The long-term US aim is to contain it, to prevent it becoming the pre-eminent power in the region, and to compete on at least equal terms economically and militarily.

"We have in every context made clear to Beijing that there's a cost to coercive behaviour, problematic conduct, whether that's on the economic front or on the security front," Danny Russel, senior director for Asia on the White House's national security council, told reporters in a conference call ahead of Obama's trip.

"Our objective is to shape the environment in the Asia-Pacific region in which the peaceful rise of important countries, including China, contributes to the common good, is fundamentally stabilising and not destabilising."

Japan was once the cornerstone of US policy in the region but its importance has slipped with the rise of China.

US strategy is now to ring China with a series of close American allies that extends well beyond Japan.

Obama, who was brought up in Indonesia and Hawaii and appears less wedded to Europe than his White House predecessors, immediately on taking office in 2009 called for a strategic review, asking where the US was "over-weighted" and where it was "under-weighted".

The conclusion was that the US was "over-weighted" in some areas such as the Middle East and "under-weighted" in Asia and the Pacific.

Ben Rhodes, a national security council spokesman, said an extraordinary amount of time was spent on Asia in the first Obama term.

"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," he said.

"We see this as an opportunity to dramatically increase US exports, to increase US leadership in the fastest-growing part of the world, and in advancing our values as well as our interests, which this trip is designed to do."

Tom Donilon, Obama's national security adviser, told a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference in Washington this week: "Our approach is grounded in a simple proposition: the United States is a Pacific power whose interests are inextricably linked with Asia's economic, security and political order. America's success in the 21st century is tied to the success of Asia."

It is partly economic. Asia accounts for about 25% of global GDP and this is expected to grow to almost 30% over the next three years.

Donilon portrayed the US military presence as a benign stabilising influence rather than a potentially dangerous counterweight to China. "In terms of security, it is widely recognised that regional security – the foundation for the region's phenomenal economic growth in recent decades – requires a stabilising American presence," he said.

"The US has security obligations to our allies and partners in the region, which is home to several of the world's biggest militaries and flashpoints such as the Korean peninsula."

Obama's first stop is Thailand, where he will provide accompanying journalists with an almost immediate photo opportunity, with a tour of the Wat Pho royal monastery. He goes from there to meet the king and afterwards the prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

The next day he heads to Burma. Although he will be applauded by some for encouraging Burma down the road towards democracy, Obama can also expect criticism for talking to a regime with an appalling human rights record and brutal repression of ethnic minorities.

Hundreds of prisoners were released by Burma last week ahead of Obama's visit but human rights campaigners said no political prisoners were included.

Obama is almost certain to address the human rights issues in a major speech while in Burma.

Russel said: "This is not a victory celebration. This is a barn-raising. This is a moment when we believe that the Burmese leaders have put their feet on the right path, and that it's critical to us that we not miss a moment to influence them to keep them going."

Next up, will be Cambodia and the east Asia summit where he will meet China's outgoing premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda on Tuesday.

It comes at a tense time in China-Japan relations, with the two laying claim to islands in the East China Sea.

US President Barack Obama is making his fifth visit to Asia

since  taking office in 2009 and his second this year (AFP,

Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

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