As U.S. President Barack Obama prepares for his visit to Asia in June -- one of three potential roundtrips to the region this year -- it is worth exploring what Washington's future policy options are with respect to
Asian regionalism. The alphabet soup of the so-called "regional architecture" includes the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Plus Three (APT), and APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), to name just a few groupings. The main question now facing the United States is whether to join the East Asia Summit, a five-year-old body that groups the 10 countries of Southeast Asia as well as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. ...