Singapore urges Obama to take stronger stand in Asia

Barack Obama may fancy himself the “Asia pivot” president, but some Asian leaders are warning that the US is still not doing enough to meet the challenge of a rapidly rising China.

The prime minister of Singapore – one of America’s most reliable partners in Southeast Asia and its 11th largest trading partner – is in Washington this week delivering a cautionary message: We want the United States and its leadership and stabilizing power in the region, but you are falling behind China, especially in terms of economic relations and trade.

“Over the last decade, China has become the top trading partner of almost all Southeast Asian nations, including US allies such as the Philippines and Thailand,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at a Washington dinner Tuesday night sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce and the US-ASEAN Business Council.

A first step the US should take to begin addressing China’s rise, according to Mr. Lee: “The US must adopt a more active trade strategy with ASEAN,” the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “In Asia,” he added, “trade is strategy.”

Lee’s Washington visit – the third by an Asian leader in the initial weeks of Mr. Obama’s second term – comes amid a ratcheting up of tensions with North Korea and as the Obama administration makes a conspicuous effort to demonstrate that the “Asia pivot” is more than just rhetoric.

Obama invited Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House in the president’s second term. The sultan of Brunei visited in March, and South Korea’s new president is scheduled to visit the White House in May.

The foreign minister of the Philippines, Albert del Rosario, is in Washington this week and had an unscheduled meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Tuesday when the Pentagon chief dropped in on Mr. del Rosario’s meeting with Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.

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