KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – President Barack Obama is hopscotching through China’s neighborhood with a carefully calibrated message for Beijing, trying both to counter and court.
During visits to U.S. allies, Obama has signaled American military power can blunt Chinese aggression in the Asia-Pacific region, even as he urges Beijing to use its growing clout to help resolve international disputes with Russia and North Korea.
U.S. officials see Russia’s provocations in Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear threats as tests of China’s willingness to take on more responsibility in enforcing global norms.
Cut off from most of the world economy, North Korea is deeply dependent on Chinese trade and assistance, giving Beijing enormous leverage. The U.S. and its allies, including South Korea, have pressed China to wield that influence more aggressively with the North, which is threatening to launch a fourth nuclear test.
“China’s influence in North Korea is indeed huge,” South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Friday during Obama’s visit to Seoul.
Beijing has a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and has supported some efforts to penalize North Korea but has not taken sweeping unilateral actions to choke off the North’s economy.
As with North Korea, the crisis in Ukraine has again put Obama in the position of asking China to prioritize international order over its own close relationship with Moscow.
China and Russia frequently join forces as a counterweight to the West. But in the face of Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, the Obama administration has sought to temper Beijing’s support for Putin by appealing to China’s traditional aversion to foreign meddling in domestic affairs.
The White House has little expectation that China will fully abandon the Kremlin and join with Western nations in levying sanctions on Russia. U.S. officials are hoping China will at least avoid making overt gestures of support for Russia’s actions, and were heartened when China abstained in a Security Council vote condemning Moscow.
Analysts say Obama can maintain a China policy that both looks to Beijing for help while also trying to counter its rise, but only if the dividing line between those positions remains clear.
“If you are consistent, they’ll be willing to have you push them occasionally on things that are sensitive or where there are areas of dispute,” Chris Johnson, a China scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of Beijing’s leaders. “It’s where you’re not consistent and they’re not sure what you’re going to do next that causes them a great amount of consternation.”
China will factor into Obama’s meetings in Southeast Asia, given that Beijing has territorial disputes with both Malaysia and the Philippines. Obama had planned to visit both countries in October, but canceled the trip because of a government shutdown in Washington.
Obama’s visit to Malaysia is the first by an American president since Lyndon B. Johnson traveled here more than four decades ago. Obama was feted by Malaysia’s royal family at a state dinner Saturday night and had meetings planned today with the prime minister and young Southeast Asian leaders.
