Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia has had a bad press. The moment the US president uttered the phrase, the Middle East demanded closer attention. The scepticism should ease with this week’s deal on a trans-Pacific trade and investment pact. There are hurdles still to jump, but the accord among a dozen Pacific Rim nations speaks to the power of geoeconomics.
There is also the view through the other end of the telescope. Washington is not the only party to the strategic realignment under way in Asia in response to China’s rise. Maybe we should be talking about Asia’s pivot to Washington.
I was reminded of this during a week-long study group in India organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations and Germany’s Robert Bosch Foundation. The purpose of a crammed agenda of meetings with politicians, policymakers and scholars was to find out “What India Thinks”. For a bunch of Europeans, one answer was decidedly depressing. Indians may buy German engineering and French jets but, in the game of great power politics, Europe is a bit-part player. The serious rumination is reserved for China and the US: the first viewed as a threat, the second, sotto voce, as an indispensable ally. The two things, of course, are connected.