Obama’s Rebalance to Asia In His Own Words: Where Does it Stand?

A version of this post also appeared as a Pacific Forum CSIS PacNet publication, and can be found here.

President Obama had a better than expected visit to Asia for annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), East Asia Summit (EAS), and G-20 gatherings, due largely to a productive summit with Xi Jinping. At the end of his trip in Brisbane, Obama gave his second major speech on the U.S. rebalancing policy to Asia, coming almost three years to the day following an address to the Australian parliament on his previous visit to Australia. A side-by-side reading of President Obama’s two major Australian speeches on the subject (he has yet to give a major policy speech on the rebalance in the United States) provides a useful benchmark for assessing the administration’s progress in implementing the policy. I found the following takeaways from my reading of the two speeches:

So where does the rebalance to Asia stand? The consistency of Obama’s two speeches in Australia makes the case that the rebalance is real and credible. But whether or not it is sustainable or sufficient will not depend only on the Obama administration’s continued commitment to the policy. It will also depend on the ability of the next American president to carry forward the rebalance in an Asian and global environment that will undoubtedly pose new and even more difficult challenges to U.S. leadership.