US should adapt to changed geopolitics in Asia

President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held phone talks with his US counterpart Barack Obama and accepted the latter's invitation to pay a state visit to the United States in September. Last week US National Security Adviser Susan Rice announced that the US invited President Xi Jinping to visit the United States this year. She also said that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, too, would visit the US this year.

By inviting the leaders of four Asian countries to the US in the same year, President Barack Obama seems to be making a last ditch effort toward the end of his eight years in office to make his hopeless "pivot to Asia" strategy a lasting legacy of his presidency.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations. At the end of World War II, Japan was devastated but only after wreaking havoc across many countries in Asia and the US emerged as the dominant power in the region as well as the rest of the world by using the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as instruments to promote its national interests. That became possible partly because the US accounted for 50 percent of the global GDP and controlled 75 percent of the world's gold at the same time. Also, given its financial power, the US could afford to build bases across Asia and the world.