Obama to Myanmar, Nixon to China

BANGKOK — It may be that being a journalist I am at the right time and the right place with President Obama coming into the city today. I am told that he will be staying at arguably the poshest hotel in Bangkok — the Four Seasons Hotel on Rajadamri Road not far from the Grand Hyatt, the Royal Palace and the Lumpini Park.

A CNN source said the hotel was crawling with security men since Thursday. No matter the meticulous preparations for the Bangkok visit of the US President, this city is a mere stopover on his way to the more important destination — Myanmar.

In Myanmar, the US president is expected to formally announce the lifting of more sanctions. The US suspended its ban on imports from Myanmar ahead of Obama’s landmark visit. This was to reward the country for its democratic reforms.

The Obama visit to Myanmar can be likened to Richard Nixon’s visit to China 40 years ago against all odds, except that Myanmar is not China. But it will do. After all, China’s influence is written all over the region.

If Obama wants to leave a legacy he is not losing time. The visit to Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand comes immediately after his re-election.

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Nixon, despite the Watergate scandal, will forever be remembered as the President who bridged East and West at a time when no American leader would have dared. With common thinking in the US going against such a visit, he risked becoming even more unpopular.

The risk was worth it. Nixon’s visit to China was the redeeming act of his Presidency. Forty years after, the peace and subsequent economic development generated by that one visit is still felt.

James Chow, international law professor at Texas Southern University, told Xinhua in an interview then “the positive impacts of the visit and the signing of the Shanghai Communique have outweighed the negative impacts.”

“Most scholars in the US also share the view that the healthy impacts of the visit are lasting and the negative impacts, if there are any, are very limited and short-lived,” Chow said.

Nixon visited China from Feb. 21 to 28 in 1972 and the Shanghai Communique was released on the last day of his visit.

Chow was a college student in New York when Nixon visited China. He said he was surprised by the news because of the hostility between the two countries.

“Western countries, particularly in the United States, experts seldom held the same views on major historical events. However, they all agreed that Nixon’s China visit benefited world peace, stability, development and prosperity.

“Nixon was a trail-blazer who would try things his predecessors were unwilling to do,” Chow said.

Moving on to today’s events Chow says “it’s a must to maintain the friendship.” He added that if China and the US did it 40 years ago, the leaders of both countries could do it again if they had the courage to reach out to each other after decades of hostility.

Chow suggested the two countries avoid criticizing each other. “Instead,” he said, “they should resort to negotiations to deal with differences and respect each other’s concerns.”

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Nixon arguably was the only US politician who could have gotten away with such a bold move says, David Ignatius.

 â€œHe had the right-wing credentials, as an anti-communist and advocate of Taiwan. A typical Nixon blast was his 1964 comment during a trip to Asia that “it would be disastrous to the cause of freedom” for the US to recognize Red China, which is precisely what he ended up doing.”

Before leaving China Nixon said at a banquet in his honor: “This was the week that changed the world.” That was a bit of Nixonian amour-propre, but he was right.

“Great presidential decisions are often ones that escape the boundaries of what a leader may have said in the past, or what his political advisers recommend, or what the conventional wisdom of the day seems to support. That was true of Nixon in China, Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis, Roosevelt in the Great Depression, Lincoln in the Civil War.

The leader who can deal with America’s problems today may be the one who’s ready to respond to complaints that his policies go against past positions with a simple statement: So what? I’m doing what’s right for the country.”

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Still the Bangkok visit has its pitfalls no matter how insignificant it seems. As Bangkok Post says “the visit will test Thai diplomacy.” President Obama’s visit to Bangkok is followed soon after by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Both leaders will meet Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and both will have an audience with His Majesty the King at Siriraj Hospital during their visits. It is smart diplomacy by Thai leaders.

An academic and analyst’s words that “the Thai government should be careful about ‘choosing sides’ between China and the US since both are long-standing allies” is what came out in media.

Not so in the Philippines. Rather than be seen as playing an even hand, it ends up saying the wrong things. President Aquino did not have to make a statement “urging Southeast Asian countries to present a united front to China over the South China Sea at an upcoming regional summit.” That could have come from some academic or analyst like the Thai did.

The President, as head of state could then be insulated from partisanship. It is well known that the Chinese will resist any regional arrangement as far as the South China dispute is concerned.

What’s the point of President Aquino’s public statement urging all 10 Asean members to speak with one voice at the East Asia summit in Cambodia next week. That is something that can be made quietly by lobbying each country. Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand although friends of both the US and China will be circumspect in their statements and weigh their options. These countries know how to have the best of both worlds, courted by both the US and China.

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I received this last minute email from Ernie del Rosario. He writes “about the shocking Dominion side of the story. This completes the sordid picture of Smartmatic’s sustained stinging of our country. It should be acted upon immediately by the relevant authorities, led by the JCOC and CERPP.”

I included it in this column so those who are following the issue can do their own research and communicate it to others.