(CNN) President
Barack Obama bade farewell to G20 leaders in Hangzhou, China, on Monday
by reminding them they're living in "turbulent" times -- and he wasn't
kidding.
His valedictory Asia tour, which moved on to Laos later in the day, is unfolding amid diplomatic slights and great power rivalries that reflect the unstable nature of the world Obama will bequeath to his successor in January.
New players
The controversies reflect the way
international politics is now a stew of many competing, rising or
resurgent powers that see fewer reasons to simply fall into line behind
the United States than was the case following World War II and the Cold
War. And it may suggest that foreign leaders are now just as interested
in who will sit in the Oval Office next as they are in Obama as he heads
for the exit.
Obama is not only
confronting regimes in Russia, China and North Korea that are at times
openly hostile to Washington -- or at least willing to make clear they
don't want to play by its rules -- but over the long weekend, he got
headaches from allies as well, notably Turkey and the Philippines.
"Who
is he?," the fiery new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte,
asked Monday at a news conference, referring to Obama. The Southeast
Asian leader warned he would lash out if the US President raised
extrajudicial killings in the Philippines' new war on drugs in an
anticipated meeting in Laos.
"I am a president of a sovereign state. And we have long ceased to be a colony of the United States," Duterte continued. "Son of a b****, I will swear at you."
It was a stunning show of disrespect for an American president. And
though Obama shrugged off the comments from the "colorful" leader during
his own news conference Monday, the White House later canceled his
meeting with Duterte, conferring instead with the President of South
Korea. Duterte later apologized for any offense caused.
Asian troubles
Duterte
is not the first erratic president of the Philippines, but his
unpredictability and willingness to fan latent colonial resentment
against the US represents an unwanted disruption for the White House at
the end of Obama's tenure.
It
comes in a regional cauldron where Beijing is making aggressive moves in
the South China Sea and Southeast Asian nations are increasingly
important to US efforts to rein in the rising power.
Obama
had hoped to spend his final journey to Asia as president talking up
the highlights of his pivot to the region. The fact sheet the White
House put out at the conclusion of the G20 touted the economic progress
under the eight years of the Obama presidency. And in one key outcome of
the summit, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally agreed that
both their nations would join the Paris Climate Agreement committing to
cutting carbon emissions.
But that
bright spot aside, his trip to China has offered reminders that since
Obama took office in 2009 -- and especially since Xi emerged as a
nationalist leader after taking office in 2012 -- Sino-US relations have
worsened.
At
one point, a White House official warned a Chinese counterpart against
restricting access of pool reporters under the wing of Air Force One,
noting that it was, after all, a US plane. "This is our country," the
man yelled back.
Obama
shrugged off that incident, too, acknowledging that disagreements over
press access often arise with China but contending that they were not
emblematic of the US-China relationship.
The Republican hoping to succeed Obama, however, took a much dimmer view of the episode.
"Can
you believe that the Chinese would not give Obama the proper stairway
to get off his plane - fight on tarmac!" Donald Trump tweeted.
Beijing said that an "unprofessional" American press had "hyped" up the incident.
"China
has warmly and friendly welcomed all the leaders who are attending the
G20 summit, why would we cause problems to the American delegations on
purpose?" said Hua Chunying, China's foreign ministry spokesperson.
Either
way, the flap served as a symbol of the tensions over issues of
sovereignty that can occur between an ascending authoritarian state and
an established democratic superpower used to getting its own way --
clashes that some analysts fear could play out on a geopolitical stage
in years to come.
Frosty ties
"Typically, the tone of our
meetings are candid, blunt, businesslike -- and this one was no
different," was how Obama described it to reporters.
He
referred to "gaps of trust" over Syria, warned that the US has "more
capacity" both "offensively and defensively" when it comes to cyber
espionage and stressed that the US has no intention of easing sanctions
against Russia over its action in Ukraine.
The tough talks were a reminder that the "reset" of Russia relations that Obama pioneered at the start of his administration is now but a memory, while Putin has also taken advantage of chaos in the Middle East to reinstate Russian influence with Syria and Iran.
Turkish tensions
Obama
also invested significant first-term political capital in improving
relations with another foreign leader he met at the G20 -- President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey -- with whom tensions were on display in
their joint appearance.
Even though
Obama bemoaned the "terrible attempted coup" that failed to topple
Erdogan in July, the Turkish President did not shy away from raising
differences with the US in front of the press.
"All forms of terrorism are bad. All forms of terrorism are evil," Erdogan said, then mentioned the names of a Kurdish group with which the US is allied in Syria but is regarded by Ankara as a terrorist organization.
As
he headed to Laos, Obama professed to being undeterred by the
unpredictable unfriendly international environment at the end of his
presidency.
"I think we all to have
recognize these are turbulent times. A lot of countries are seeing
volatile politics," he said at his news conference. "But then when you
look back over the course of eight years, actually you find out things
have gotten better.
"I tell my
staff when they feel worn out sometimes that better is always good," he
added. "It may not be everything that needs to get done, but if it's
better than before we started, we'll take it."
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