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Obama’s Foreign Policy in Asia:
More Continuity than Change
Author: Mayang A. Rahawestri
Volume 6, Number 1 (Autumn 2010), pp. 109-120.
Abstract
President Obama’s stewardship of US foreign policy is continuing his predecessors’ success in maintaining regional stability and the US pre-eminence in the region. Obama continues to engage China on one hand, while hedging against its growing military power on the other, all the while fostering a strategic partnership with India. Continuity also marks the Obama administration’s relationships with Japan and South Korea, and with US efforts to denuclearise North Korea through the Six-Party Talks. New departures under Obama include seeking a comprehensive partnership with Indonesia, signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation that highly underscores the principle of non-interference and committing to regularly attend the ASEAN Regional Forum that has been sidelined during the Bush era. But such changes are more about the style than the substance of US foreign policy in Asia which is still focused on maintaining the US primacy in the region.
About the Author
Mayang A. Rahawestri is an official working in the Indonesian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. This article is based on work undertaken at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in 2009, where she studied as an AusAID scholar in the Masters of Strategic Affairs program. The article is a statement of her personal views and does not represent the views of the Indonesian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. mayangar@yahoo.com.
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