Posted by
Defend America on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 1:41:47 AM
President Obama Didn't Impress Asia
China and others know exactly how to take advantage of a 'post-American' President.
Barack
Obama's first visit to Asia since his inauguration was one of the most
disappointing trips by any U.S. president to the region in decades,
especially given media-generated expectations that "Obamamania" would
make it yet another triumphal progression. It was a journey of
startlingly few concrete accomplishments, demonstrable proof that
neither personal popularity nor media deference really means much in
the hard world of international affairs.
The contrast between Asia's reception for Obama and Europe's is
significant. Although considered a global phenomenon, Obamamania's real
center is Europe. There, Mr. Obama reigns as a "post-American"
president, a multilateralist carbon copy of a European social democrat.
Asians operate under no such illusions, notwithstanding the "Oba-Mao" T
shirts briefly on sale in China. Whatever Mr. Obama's allure in Europe,
Asian leaders want to know what he means for peace and security in
their region. On that score, opinion poll ratings mean little.
What the president lacked in popular adulation, however, he more
than made up for in self-adulation. In Asia, he labeled himself
"America's first Pacific president," ignoring over a century of
contrary evidence. The Pacific has been important to America since the
Empress of China became the first trading ship from the newly
independent country to reach the Far East in 1784. Theodore Roosevelt
created a new Pacific country (Panama) and started construction on the
Panama Canal to ensure that America's navy could move rapidly from its
traditional Atlantic bases to meet Pacific challenges. William Howard
Taft did not merely live on Pacific islands as a boy, like Obama, but
actually governed several thousand of them as Governor-General of the
Philippines in 1901-1903. Dwight Eisenhower served in Manila from 1935
to 1939, and five other presidents wore their country's uniform in the
Pacific theater during World War II—two of whom, John F. Kennedy and
George H.W. Bush, very nearly perished in the effort.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704888404574549120432148980.html?mod=googlenews_wsj