Obama Faces Tough Sell During April Visit to KL

The Straits Times

21 February 2014

Rare trip by US leader unlikely to change cosy Sino-Malaysian ties

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama will travel to Malaysia in April seeking to regain American influence in South-east Asia’s third-biggest economy at a time when concerns are rising in the region about the growing assertiveness of China, Asia’s dominant power.
The first American leader to travel here since the late Lyndon B. Johnson’s visit in 1966, Mr Obama will be received by Prime Minister Najib Razak, regarded as the friendliest Malaysian leader the United States has had in more than three decades.
Still, many regard it as not an easy sell.

… Dr Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said Malaysia, like other South-east Asian nations, traditionally seeks a precarious balance between welcoming a US security presence and engaging China economically.

He said this was evident when the RMN chief made it a point to state that Malaysia and the US had been informed about the Chinese patrol near James Shoal.

“That is significant. It was a subtle signal to China that in this part of the world, there is more than one superpower. Malaysia chose to send this signal in a subtle way,” he said.

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