Tokyo:
The United States is not threatened by a rising China, President Barack Obama said Saturday, but will seek to strengthen its ties with Beijing even as it maintains close ties with traditional allies like Japan.
In a wide-ranging speech on his first trip to Asia as president, Obama drew on his own background to reassure the people of the fast-growing continent that even as the United States seemed preoccupied with conflicts in the Middle East and other regions, it was increasingly "a nation of the Pacific."
"I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China's emergence," Obama told an audience in Tokyo's Suntory Hall. But he added, "In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another."
Declaring himself "America's first Pacific president" (a description that somehow ignored Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, two Californians), Obama previewed many of the themes that will shadow him during his weeklong trip, which will also include stops in Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul.
He called on North Korea to return to talks aimed at reining in its nuclear weapons program or face even greater isolation; he urged the military government in Myanmar to release the leader of the country's beleaguered democracy movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (although he mispronounced her name); and he pledged to "never waver in speaking for the fundamental values that we hold dear."
But at every turn of his address, Obama projected a more conciliatory America, which is trying to break from the past. On Myanmar, for example, he pledged that he would "be the first American leader to meet with all 10 ASEAN leaders." Obama will be at the table in Singapore on Sunday with the leaders of Myanmar and the other countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an economic group.
And while Obama spoke at length about human rights, he never connected the pursuit of such rights specifically to China and Tibet, where Beijing-backed authorities have clamped down on religious freedom. Instead, Obama, clearly seeking to avoid alienating Beijing on the eve of his inaugural visit to China, struck broader themes, saying that "supporting human rights provides lasting security that cannot be purchased any other way."
As he has on many of his trips abroad, Obama painted a picture of an America willing to learn from its mistakes. In particular, he said, the United States and Asia must grow out of the imbalance of American consumerism and Asian reliance on the United States as an export market, a cycle he called imbalanced.
"One of the important lessons this recession has taught us is the limits of depending primarily on American consumers and Asian exports to drive growth," he said. "We have now reached one of those rare inflection points in history where we have the opportunity to take a different path."
Obama seemed to speak directly to the new Japanese government's efforts to build a tighter Asian economic sphere, and used his own history to deliver the message: Don't exclude the United States.
"My own life is part of that story," he said. "I am an American president who was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia as a boy. My sister Maya was born in Jakarta and later married a Chinese-Canadian. My mother spent nearly a decade working in the villages of Southeast Asia, helping women buy a sewing machine or an education that might give them a foothold in the world economy."
"So," he added, "the Pacific Rim has helped shape my view of the world." He even spoke of his first trip to Japan as a boy_"As a child, I was more focused on the matcha ice cream," he said.
That drew laughs from the audience, which gave him a standing ovation both before and after his speech.