Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of PublicPolicy at the NationalUniversityofSingapore, is the author of the NewAsianHemisphere: the IrresistibleShift of GlobalPower to the East.
After visiting Burma, Mr Obama headed to Cambodia to join a meeting of the Association of South EastAsian Nations, in a trip that underlines the shift in US foreign policy focus to the Asia-Pacific region.