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US President Barack Obama boarding Air Force One. Photo: AP

Security worries reinforce US relevance to Asia

Southeast Asian nations are seeking America's help in building counterterror capabilities

When US President Barack Obama boarded Air Force One for a 10-day, three-country tour just hours after a small group of gunmen and suicide bombers unleashed deadly terror on Paris, it seemed inevitable that his main message about countering the rise of China would be lost.

But in the president's view, the security concerns that arose after the attack made his work to deepen ties with China's neighbours all the more significant.

The Southeast Asian nations whom he has courted as a way to blunt Chinese influence share his worry about the potency of Islamic State, and they appear to have found fresh comfort during his trip in America's strong security hand.

As he prepared on Sunday to return to Washington, Obama made the case that his administration's long-term endeavour to redeploy US diplomatic, military and economic resources toward Asia was no less critical to national security than his strategy in the Middle East.

Obama pointed to a headline ("Obama's Asian Distraction?") that appeared while he was abroad and said: "The premise seemed to be that this region was somehow disconnected from pressing global events. I could not disagree more. This region is not a distraction from the world's central challenges, like terrorism."

Combining a stop at the Group of 20 summit in Turkey with visits to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Manila, Philippines, and finally the annual Asean gathering of Southeast Asian nations, the trip was laid out as an opportunity for Obama to highlight progress on his pivot to Asia.

The Paris attacks only reinforced how much countries in the region look to the US for help in combating terrorist groups, according to Ernest Bower, chair of Southeast Asia studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

"You look around the world to where there could be problems, and Southeast Asia really stands out," said Bower.

"Though numbers of radicalised Islamists are relatively small compared to the total Muslim populations in these countries, Southeast Asia could be just as susceptible as Europe, if not more. They have radicalised Islamists … and in some cases they also have less developed tools to track and arrest terrorists."

When Indonesian President Joko Widodo travelled to Washington last month for the first time since taking office, he asked Obama for US support for tracking and monitoring radicalised Indonesians trying to come back from war zones.

And Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines are all seeking American help in building up their own counter-terrorism capabilities.

An approach to Islamic State that is global both in its reach and its makeup is critical to Obama's formula.

On Saturday, the president announced the elevation of the US-Asean relationship to a strategic partnership, a move largely driven by regional issues but one with added significance given what Obama noted were the key roles played by some member nations in the international coalition against Islamic State.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Security worries reinforce US relevance to Asia
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