Obama seeks to renew Asia role with rescheduled trip

Google – AFP, Shaun Tandon (AFP), 20 November 2013

US President Barack Obama (R) and First Lady Michelle Obama arrive for

 a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on November 20, 2013 in

Washington, DC (AFP, Mandel Ngan)

Washington — President Barack Obama will visit Asia in April to push closer ties, an aide said Wednesday, after his earlier cancellation of a trip raised questions about US staying power.

Susan Rice, Obama's adviser for national security, acknowledged disappointment after Obama called off a trip in October to negotiate with Republican lawmakers who shut down the US government to stop his health care reforms.

Rice said Obama would make up with a trip in April, saying: "Our friends in Asia deserve and will continue to get our highest-level attention."

"No matter how many hotspots emerge elsewhere, we will continue to deepen our enduring commitment to this critical region," Rice said in an address at Georgetown University.

US National Security Advisor Susan Rice

 speaks at the New America Foundation

 in Washington, DC on September 9,

2013 (AFP/File, Nicholas Kamm)

Rice said US assistance to the typhoon-hit Philippines, which includes the deployment of more than 1,000 Marines, represented a "broader pledge" to all of Asia.

"America's commitment won't expire a few months or a few years from now. The United States of America will be there -- reliable, constant, strong and steady -- for the long haul," she said.

Rice did not specify Obama's itinerary in April. In October, he planned stops in the Philippines, Malaysia and, for international summits, Indonesia and Brunei.

Even US allies quietly voiced concern over Obama's no-show, which offered an outsized role to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the meetings.

Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, pledged in his first term to "pivot" US foreign policy toward Asia where the regional order is being transformed by the rapid growth of China's economy and military.

But in his second term, Obama has focused on Syria's civil war and easing hostility with Iran and the United States has put a priority on taming its debt after two wars and a recession.

Rice said that Secretary of State John Kerry, who has invested the most time in the Middle East since taking office, would return to Asia in December.

China welcome in trade pact

Rice said that the United States would stay true to its pledge to shift most of its navy toward Asia by 2020 and would pursue the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that Obama hopes will shape the coming order in Asia.

Rice reached out to China, which in the past has called the trade pact -- which is also unpopular with much of Obama's labor base -- an effort to encircle it.

"We welcome any nation that is willing to live up to the high standards of this agreement to join and share the benefits of TPP -- and that includes China," Rice said.

But Rice also called on China to take action on US concerns including cyber-espionage. 

Earlier Wednesday, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a government advisory panel, urged the United States to consider tougher actions including possible sanctions to stop spying.

Desperate villagers race for relief aid dropped from a United States Marines

Osprey aircraft near the town of Palo, on November 20, 2013 (AFP, Mark Ralston)

Rice also voiced alarm over China's disputes with its neighbors including US allies Japan and the Philippines, calling the tensions a "growing threat to regional peace and security and to US interests."

Rice urged all sides to "reject coercion and aggression" and renewed the US call for a code of conduct to govern disputes in the South China Sea.

In a potential indication that White House is thinking of its legacy, Rice hailed democratic reforms in Myanmar and tied them to Obama's outreach to the longtime pariah state since the start of his presidency.

"If progress continues, by the end of President Obama's second term we hope to have helped Burma re-establish itself as a regional leader and as a thriving, if nascent, prosperous democracy," Rice said, using Myanmar's former name.

But Rice said that Myanmar needed to do more to protect minorities including the mostly Muslim Rohingya and to ensure free elections in 2015.