US President Barack Obama participates in the East Asia Summit Plenary Session in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. [Image: US State Department]
By Associate Michele Ford. First published in The Canberra Times. November 2012 - Only days after his re-election, Barack Obama left for Thailand, Burma and Cambodia on his fifth trip to Asia as President and the first visit ever by a US president to Burma or Cambodia. His decision to do so is historic not just because of what it says about the US position on Burma and efforts to promote Asian democracy, but because of what it says about Southeast Asia. President Obama's aides are making no bones about the fact that the trip is part of US efforts to generate ballast against the increasing power of China. And as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan know only too well, there is no better place to do so than in their own neighbourhood. Along with China itself, other northeast Asian nations are investing hugely in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - not just in trade and aid, but in myriad forms of soft diplomacy.
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