
U.S. President Barack Obama takes off on Thursday for his first Asia tour. The region has seen a formidable transformation fueled by China's meteoric rise as a regional power, and a Japan full of ambitions for independence from US' traditional authority.
'Asia is changing rapidly. It is experiencing a fundamental transition,' said Huang Jing, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore. He added that the America that dominates but is friendly with developing countries, and that Japan, the number one economy in Asia, is a perpetual ally of America are old notions. According to him, Asia is totally different now, with China as number one, not Japan.'
Though he is popular enough, Obama is not the star in Asia that he may be in Europe. In addition, he is arriving in Asia 'empty handed' as far as trade is concerned, which is a crucial issue for Asian countries according to Michael Green, former advisor to the White House under Bush and now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS ) in Washington.
In recent years, while the Bush administration had a reputation of carelessness in Asia on major issues and its obsession with security, China managed to replace the U.S. as the largest trading partner to Japan, South Korea and ASEAN countries. The Chinese economy is now poised to overtake Japan as second in the world.
Jeffrey Bader, Obama's chief advisor for Asia, recently indicated that given these changes, Obama's new America expects to be 'an actor (...) not a distant spectator,'. Obama will also have to face Beijing's ire at the recent imposition of high import tariffs, despite the promises of Obama not to resort to protectionism.
For more on China:
China: the U.S. debt and the North Korean nuclear threat
Tibetan protest against Chinese government - slide show
China quick to squash explosion of anger in Uighur capital - video