Obama goes to Asia

Obama is schedueled to travel to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea on his first trip to Asia during his presidency. The United States has vested economic interests in these countries: Obama will first stop in Tokyo to discuss the decades-old military alliance between those two countries before flying to singapore for a Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting. He will make two stops in China, which is of great economic interests to the US, before finishing in South Korea.

Analysists doubt whether Obama's visit will have any substantial effect. Although he has high popularity in these countries, Obama brings no economic plan or trading arangement to Singapore's APEC meeting, analougous to attending NATO without a Military. Climate Change is high on the agenda, and revisiting the Kyoto Protocol may well be on the Agenda.

However, like most presidential acftions, Obama's visits are primerily a gesture. Obama has been on 17 foriegn trips his first year in office, more than any of his predecessors, and most of them have been to Europe and the Middle East. If nothing else, speeches about American intervention in Asian affairs and this trip to Asia reaffirms the place of American interest in Asia, and if stuff gets done, then all the better. His return to the US through Afganistan, hoping to get more peace talks, reveals that Asia is not at the top of his priorities.

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