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WASHINGTON: Barack Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia,
John McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and Hillary Clinton
joked she was delighted to be a “Senator from Punjab.” All three
US senators jostling to win the White House have striking
connections to Asia.
They have pledged to strengthen US ties in the
region through partnerships, which experts said could help repair
the badly undermined US reputation following incumbent President
George W. Bush’s 2003 decision to go to war in Iraq.
Obama and former First Lady Clinton, vying to be
Democratic flagbearer in the election, and Republican presumptive
nominee John McCain however have not spelt out their approaches to
specific foreign policy questions, in debates or on the campaign
trail.
The 46-year-old Obama, who could become the
first black American president, wants to forge “a more effective
framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional
summits, and ad hoc arrangements.”
Obama, who lived with his late Kansas-born
mother and stepfather in Indonesia when he was six to 10 years old,
also wished to maintain “strong ties with US allies such as Japan,
South Korea and Australia.
All three candidates see China, which is
confronting US influence in Asia with its rising military power and
rapidly growing economy, as a central challenge.
Obama wants China to “play by the rules”
while McCain calls for a halt to Beijing’s efforts to establish
regional forums and economic arrangements “designed to exclude”
the United States from Asia.
Clinton said the United States “must stand
ready to challenge China when its conduct was at odds with US vital
interests.”
The New York senator, who claims to have had
extensive foreign policy and national security experience in her
husband Bill Clinton’s White House, also underlined India’s
“special significance” both as an emerging power and the
world’s most populous democracy and the need for it to be given
“an augmented voice” in regional and international institutions,
such as the United Nations.
Clinton, 61, who could become the first woman US
president, enjoys strong ties with Indian Americans and once drew
laughter at a fundraising event when she said, “I am delighted to
be the Senator from Punjab as well as from New York.”
McCain, the 71-year-old Vietnam War hero who
spent years languishing in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison
camp, said his “lessons of teamwork and sacrifice” during his
incarceration had made him a “better man.”
“We Americans must lead by example and
encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most
importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and
India,” he said.
Despite their assertions, however, none of the
three candidates is expected to make sweeping US policy changes on
Asia, experts said.
“I think it would be very surprising if you
saw a dramatic change of US policy toward most of the countries of
Asia,” said Robert Hathaway, an Asian expert at the
Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“However, there would be much less of the
cowboy rhetoric that had characterized the current administration
and much greater commitment to working with partners rather than
going it alone and far greater efforts to display a sensitivity to
the views of other peoples, other cultures, other religions,” he
said.
The American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan,
“regardless of their relative merits, have unquestionably poisoned
America’s standing among Asia’s 900 million Muslims, from
Pakistan to the Philippines and all points in between,” said
US-based Asia Society President Vishakha Desai.
In an open list of questions posed to the three
candidates, Desai asked how they will “engage” Muslims in Asia
and garner support at home for stronger ties with Muslims overseas.
She also wanted them to declare upfront whether
they would “back—or back away from—free trade pacts with
Asia” and whether they saw Asian acquisitions of valuable US-owned
economic assets a “positive development or potential peril.”
-- AFP
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