Much ado about very little

Perhaps the best way to view President Barack Obama’s lengthy trip to Asia is to see it as something of a get-acquainted exercise in a part of the world where the United States still has perceived interests and a substantial military presence of dubious value to the United States. If it turns out to be a prelude to acknowledgment of stubborn realities that leads to changes in policies, that might be encouraging. If not, it will look more like an opportunity for the president to give speeches and not much else.

Although it didn’t make much news, it is likely that numerous Asian leaders expressed concern if not alarm over the loose monetary and fiscal policies the Obama administration has put in place. The administration’s free-spending ways have been largely financed by China, which has some $2.27 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, about two-thirds in dollar-denominated assets. China is concerned that the administration’s spending will lead to inflation, which would depreciate the value of its assets and impede its recovery from the global recession.

In Japan, Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Japan Democratic Party supplanted the long-running rule of the Liberal Democratic Party and seeks changes in Japan’s relationship with the United States, seemed cordial and friendly on a personal level. But no progress was made on Japan’s desire for the United States to reduce its military footprint on the southern island of Okinawa.

Given our economic crisis, not to mention Japan’s preferences, a strong case can be made for winding down the U.S. military presence. But Obama gave no hint that such a move is even being contemplated.

In Singapore, the president was forced to acknowledge that there is no realistic hope of a binding treaty on climate change being instituted in a December meeting in Copenhagen. Given the likely depressing effects on the U.S. economy of a binding effort to reduce greenhouse gases during a stubborn recession, this may be disappointing to the administration but is good news for most Americans.

It was nice that the president vowed in South Korea to move toward ratifying a bilateral trade agreement with Seoul that was concluded two years ago that many analysts believe could lead to tens of thousands of U.S. jobs. Whether he will be able to move organized labor at home to tone down its shortsighted opposition is another question.

Perhaps the trip did, as presidential adviser David Axelrod tried to spin it, lay groundwork for reasserting U.S. leadership in the region. It will take a while to see, however, if there are such lasting effects, and what shape they might take.