Obama's Foreign Policy in Asia: More Continuity than Change

Abstract

Presidcnl Obam* stewardship of US foreign policy is continuing his predecessors' success in maintaining rogional stability and the US pre-eminence in the region, Obama continues to engage China on one hand, while hedging against its growing military power on the other, all the while fostering a strategic pannership with India. Continuity also marks the Obama administration's relationships with Japan and South Korea, and with US efforts to denuclearise North Korea through the Six-Party Talks, New departures under Obama include seeking a comprehensive partnership with Indonesia, signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation that highly underscores the principle of non-interference and committing to regularly attend the ASEAN Regional Forum that has been sidelined during the Bush era. But such changes are more about the style than the substance of US foreign policy in Asia which IS still fOcused on maintaining the I-JS primacy in the region.