As Obama made apologetic calls to Asia to cancel his planned trip, China’s leader, Xi Jinping was taking a star turn in some of the same countries Obama would have visited.
Xi became the first foreigner to address the Indonesian Parliament, offering billions of dollars in trade to the country that was Obama’s childhood home. Xi then moved on to Malaysia, before preparing to attend two Asian summits that Obama had to abandon.
With the cancellation of the visits, the much-promoted but already anemic American “pivot” to Asia was further undercut, leaving allies in the region increasingly doubtful the United States will be a viable counterbalance to a rising China.
The news comes after Obama’s U-turn on intervention in Syria.
“How can the United States be a reliable partner when President Obama can’t get his own house in order?” asked Richard Heydarian, a foreign policy adviser to the Philippine Congress and a lecturer in international affairs at Ateneo de Manila University in Manila.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/with-obama-stuck-in-washington-china-leader-has-clear-path-at-asia-conferences.html