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Obama reaches out to Asia
The president sought to cast U.S.-Asian relations with a new eye toward allies and former foes, economics and regional relationships.
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TOKYO
The United States is not threatened by a rising China, President Obama said Saturday, but will seek to strengthen its ties with Beijing even as it maintains close ties with traditional allies such as Japan.
In a wide-ranging speech on his inaugural trip to Asia, Obama, as he often does, drew on his own personal background to reassure people on the fast-growing continent that even as the United States seems preoccupied with conflicts in the Middle East and other regions, it is increasingly "a nation of the Pacific."
"I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China's emergence," Obama told an audience in Tokyo's Suntory Hall. But, he added, "in an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another."
As he has on many of his trips abroad, Obama struck a conciliatory note, painting a picture of an America that is willing to learn from its mistakes. In particular, he said, the United States and Asia must get out of the imbalance of American consumerism and Asian reliance on the United States as an export market, a cycle he called "imbalanced."
"One of the important lessons this recession has taught us is the limits of depending primarily on American consumers and Asian exports to drive growth," he said. "We have now reached one of those rare inflection points in history where we have the opportunity to take a different path."
Obama seemed to speak directly to the new Japanese government's efforts to build a tighter Asian economic sphere, and used his own history to deliver the message: Don't exclude the United States.
"My own life is part of that story," he said. "I am an American president who was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia as a boy. My sister Maya was born in Jakarta, and later married a Chinese-Canadian. My mother spent nearly a decade working in the villages of Southeast Asia, helping women buy a sewing machine or an education that might give them a foothold in the world economy."
"So," he added, "the Pacific rim has helped shape my view of the world." He even spoke of his first trip to Japan as a boy --"As a child, I was more focused on the matcha ice cream," he said.
Obama also called on North Korea to return to the six-party talks aimed at reining in Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, and said that the path toward a future of economic opportunity, greater security and respect "cannot be earned through belligerence."
"The path for North Korea to realize this future is clear: a return to the six-party talks, upholding previous commitments -- including a return to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty -- and the full and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," he said.
Obama also urged the military government in Myanmar to release the leader of the country's beleaguered democracy movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But there, again, Obama signaled a break from the past, pledging that he would "be the first American leader to meet with all 10 ASEAN leaders," an indication that he will, at the very least, be present for talks with Myanmar's military leaders when he attends the Southeast Asia regional group meeting in Singapore on Sunday.
Obama's speech came near the end of his inaugural trip to Japan, where he spent two days mending fences with America's most important Asian ally.
On Friday, Obama announced that he would establish a high-level working group on the contentious issue of the continuing presence of a Marine base in Okinawa. The decision, announced at a news conference with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, appears to represent a concession by the Obama administration to at least consider Japan's concerns about the base, which is unpopular in Okinawa and which the newly elected Japanese government had promised to relocate.
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