Struggling to recognise the city of his childhood, Barack Obama today returned to Jakarta on a heavily curtailed trip to Indonesia. The US president, who spent four years living in the Indonesian capital, said it was "wonderful" to return to the city of his boyhood, even if it was unfamiliar.
"I have to tell you that when you visit a place that you spent some time in as a child, as a president, it's a little disorienting," Obama told journalists at the Indonesian presidential palace.
"Much has been made of the fact that this marks my return to where I lived as a boy. I barely recognise it. The landscape has changed completely," he said of Jakarta's radical transformation from a developing city into a global metropolis.
"When I first came here in 1967 everyone rode on becaks [cycle rickshaws], you stood in the back and it was very crowded. Now, as president, I couldn't see any traffic because they had blocked off all the streets."
This is Obama's third attempt to return to Indonesia. Two earlier visits were derailed this year by the controversy over his health reform bill and by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But unlike the previous itineraries, which were to have included a visit to the government school he attended in Besuki Street, Menteng, there will be no trip down memory lane.
Indeed the visit, stripped to its diplomatic essentials and crammed into less than 24 hours, continued to be cut as Obama was en route from India. The centrepiece of the tour, Obama's speech to an audience of 25,000 at the University of Indonesia, was moved indoors, restricting the audience to 5,000.
A spokesman for the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said it was in case of bad weather and the police said it was to improve security. But some have also speculated that the move to a more restricted space is linked to a disagreement between the White House and the Indonesian presidential palace over the speech.
It is also likely he will leave two hours earlier to avoid volcanic ash drifting from Mount Merapi to Jakarta. Soon after arriving, during a rather stilted press conference, Obama expressed "great affection for the people here", but downplayed the sentimental aspect of his visit. "Today I'm here to focus not on the past but on the future," he said.
His visit follows the formation of the US-Indonesia comprehensive partnership in June, aimed at improving bilateral relations between the two countries in trade, investment, education, environment, climate change and security.
In particular, the US is seeking co-operation in Asia to correct global economic imbalances it believes undermine the US economy, such as China's undervalued currency.
"Asia is the fastest growing part of the world," said Obama. "It's the fastest in terms of population and the fastest growing set of economies. There's enormous potential and enormous promise, but only if countries co-operate, if they observe the rules of the road, if potential conflict is to be resolved in a successful fashion." This was an indirect reference to America's currency disagreement with China over the value of the yuan.
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