Obama Reaches Out to China

President Obama used a speech in Tokyo to send a message to Beijing: We come in peace. “I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China’s emergence,” Obama said, according to The New York Times. But he added, “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another.” Obama also urged Asian nations to view the United States as a Pacific partner, even using his own biography to add to the case. “My own life is part of that story,” he said. “I am an American president who was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia as a boy. My sister Maya was born in Jakarta and later married a Chinese-Canadian. My mother spent nearly a decade working in the villages of Southeast Asia, helping women buy a sewing machine or an education that might give them a foothold in the world economy.”