Why does the US want to return to Asia?

[longriver]

The smiling Obama is actually surrounded by both domestic and oversea predicatments. Few days ago, Democratic Party lost the campaign in Congressional election and many democratic senators were thinking of changing side in order to maintain the position in congress. The medical reform bill was passed with a marginal success. The support rate of Obama has decreased from 70% when he took office in January to 50%. And the declining trend of the rate is quite obvious. Ford Hood shooting tragedy once again forced Obama to re-consider Iraq and Afghanistan problems. All those problems has made Obama to shorten his Asia tour. President Obama wants to make some achievement abroad so as to relieve the pressure at home.



Obama deemed to take something back from the US’old allies: Japan and S. Korea. Japan has agreed to earmarke USD 5 billion to the re-construction Afghanistan program and S. Korea will deploy a re-construction team of 500 members to Afghanistan. Of course, the US has to give something back, especially in free trade and emission cut.




From the strategic perspective, the highlight of Obama’s Asia tour is China. Obama is the first US president in history who have visited China in his first year in office. He spent four days in China out of the eight-day Asia tour, which has clearly show the significance of China trip and the focus of the US’”Return-to-Asia”Strategy.




Japan, S.Korea, and most member countries of the ASEAN are traditional allies of the US, and are historically frontier countries to “contain China”. But right now, since the strenghtening trade relations between China and the US, the American government has to make some adjustment in regional structure policies. Hatoyama, the new Prime Minister of Japan, has claimed to have “equal dialogue”with the US. In such an occasion, if the Obama’s Asian diplomatic policies still focuses on mid-east and anti-terrorism, the US will be marginalized by Asia, and consequently the trade volume will keep shrinking.

From Global Times Forum

 

[Toronado3800]

I think the U.S. would naturally want some balance in Asia. What's the % of the world's population that lives between India China and old Bangladesh? Not to mention China's growing economic and military power.

IMO the discussion is "what should we be doing there" not "if we should bother"

 

[adeel_sami]

It's US wants share in the progress of ASIA ??