If U.S. President Barack Obama was hoping for some quick victories during his trip to Asia after the "shellacking" that his Democratic Party took in the recent midterm elections, he might have come away disappointed. During the G-20 summit in Seoul, the much-anticipated U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement fell through, partially over fears that a newly hostile Congress would scuttle it. And while Obama had harsh words for China's decision to keep its currency artificially low, he was thwarted in his attempt to rally the world's largest economies to pressure China to change its policy. Even in Indonesia, where the president is hailed as a homecoming king, some locals grumbled about his decision to cut short his visit due to eruptions from a newly active volcano.
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In response, some pundits have dubbed Obama's Asia tour a failure. In fact, the exact opposite is true. In India, where the stakes of the trip were highest, the president's visit was a ringing success -- and one that will have repercussions long after these temporary setbacks have been forgotten.
Although the White House advertised the visit as being largely about securing American jobs through increased Indian imports, Obama's words and actions confirmed that he was pursuing a broader agenda: affirming India's importance in the emerging Asian order, affirming its role as a global rather than as a local South Asian power, and deepening its inclusion in the institutions of global governance.
The visit marked the first time that Obama himself provided clear and unmistakable judgments about India. "In Asia and around the world, India is not simply emerging," Obama said both at a news conference and in speaking to India's Parliament. "India has emerged."
Responding to
this reality, Obama endorsed, for the first time ever, India's claim to a
permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. His support for India --
over treaty allies like Germany and other claimants such as Brazil -- spoke volumes about the importance that the
United States places on its alliance with India as an emerging power. "It can be said definitively now: with US President Barack
Obama's India visit, the long
shadow that the Cold War cast on India-US ties has been dispelled," the Times of India responded in its lead editorial. "Instead of looking to the past, the relationship has been
recast for the 21st century."
Obama also announced a far-reaching initiative that expands India's
access to U.S. high-tech equipment. In exchange for an Indian commitment to
continually upgrade its export control system, an important step toward tightening the global nonproliferation regime,
Obama declared that the United States would permit India to purchase previously
restricted commodities, such as systems useful for defense and space
applications. He also pledged to support India's membership in the four
critical global nonproliferation regimes so that India could become part of
the rule-making institutions that oversee commerce in nuclear, missile, chemical,
and military technologies.
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