Washington, Wednesday, February 1, 2012: President Barack Obama on Wednesday said that the countries in Asia are looking at the United States towards the development of an architecture that protects them from the rise of China.

“As I travel around the world what’s striking to me is the degree to which for all of the challenges we’ve gone through over the last three years, the world still looks to us for leadership,” Obama said at a campaign fund raising event in Washington.

“They’re still looking to America because for all our power, they also understand we are invested in a set of international rules and international norms and a set of universal values that historically superpowers have not paid a lot of attention to,” he said.

“So when we went to Asia what was striking was, yes, people understand that China is on the rise and economically their fates are going to be tied not only to us but also to a rapidly growing China, but when it comes to putting together an architecture out there that assures that small countries are protected, that everybody is abiding by the same sets of rules, that their natural resources are properly developed and not exploited, they’re still looking to us,” Obama said.

(News agency)