Obama to visit Phl, 3 Asian countries in April

MANILA, Philippines - US President Barack Obama will visit the Philippines and three other Asian countries in late April as part of his commitment to increase his country’s diplomatic, economic and security engagement in the Asia Pacific region, the White House announced yesterday.

Obama will also travel to Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia in the same month. The White House did not give exact dates for the trip, other than saying it would take place in late April.

The Philippines is the fifth Asian treaty ally Obama will have visited during his presidency.

In his trips, the US president will seek to ease questions over the staying power of his strategic shift to an increasingly tense region.

Obama’s visits to Manila and Kuala Lumpur are intended to make up for his no-show when he cancelled a previous Asia tour in October amid domestic political strife in Washington highlighted by a government shutdown.

“President Obama will meet with President Aquino to discuss ways to further strengthen the enduring Philippines-US alliance, including the expansion of security, economic and people-to-people ties,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said yesterday.

He said part of the talks on security would be on the West Philippine Sea dispute with China and with other Southeast Asian countries. But he said he did not have details on a new agreement being worked out by the US and the Philippines.

A subtext to Obama’s visit would be the rising territorial tensions between several US allies, including the Philippines, and China, which deepened over Beijing’s recent declaration of an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea.

Beijing was also angered last week when Washington stiffened its line on territorial disputes in the South China Sea, calling for it to adjust or clarify its claims.

Obama’s stops in Japan and South Korea will also bolster close US alliances at a time of aggravated political tensions between its two Northeast Asian friends.

It was an open secret that Obama would visit Japan in April, to take up an invitation from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in December 2012.

But the decision to add South Korea to the trip came after rising pressure from Seoul and from the Asia policy community in Washington.

The move also reflects a desire to signal to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that there are no gaps in US and South Korean resolve to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear program and belligerent rhetoric.

It also indicates that Obama wants to avoid dealing a political slight to South Korean President Park Geun-hye that could result from a presidential visit to Tokyo and not one to Seoul.

Relations between the two nations were severely rattled by Abe’s December visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors war criminals among Japan’s war dead.

Obama’s Asia itinerary also has one notable exception – a stop in China. But he is expected to return to the region later in the year for regional summits in Australia, Beijing and Myanmar.

He is certain to try to push negotiations on a vast Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact that would include 12 nations, and is seen by some observers as an attempt to meet the economic challenge of a rising China.

Skepticism

Obama, however, may encounter some skepticism from regional partners because Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, a key ally, has expressed skepticism about granting him expanded powers to negotiate trade deals.

In light of Reid’s remarks, Pacific Rim nations may be loath to make concessions in the trade talks, fearing that any deal agreed upon may be modified by the US Congress.

Obama will stop first in Japan where he will meet Abe. Then he will travel to Seoul for talks with Park, likely to be dominated by North Korea’s latest maneuvering on the divided peninsula.