Obama returns from Asia with a mixed bag

Now that President Barack Obama has returned from a weeklong trip to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, it’s time to assess what he achieved.

He traveled there to underscore his 2-year-old “pivot to Asia” policy, part of which recognizes the growing weight of Asian countries in terms of two-way trade and investment opportunities for the United States. As part of that focus, Mr. Obama should pay most attention to U.S.-Chinese relations, given the two countries’ sales to and investments in each other and given America’s multi-trillion-dollar debt to China.