An opportunity for America to launch the long-delayed Pacific Century

SINCE the end of the Cold War, American presidents have been reiterating their commitment to shifting America's geo-strategic and geo-economic focus from the Middle East to East Asia.

In 1993, then President Bill Clinton , hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum in Seattle, proposed transforming Apec from a "talking shop" into a pillar of an Asia-centric foreign policy. And when President Barack Obama - born and raised in Hawaii, America's self-described "first Pacific president" - hosted the Apec Leaders Meeting in 2011 in Honolulu, the event was meant to symbolise these changing US foreign policy priorities.

"The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the centre of the action," President Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared. Launching her administration's so-called "pivot to the Pacific", she stressed that America's diplomatic and economic frontiers this century lay not in the Middle East or Europe, but in Asia.