On the next day after President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union (SotU) 2014, which did not mention anything about the tension in East Asia, not even the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Tokyo-based The Diplomat published an article to ask whether Obama “has abandoned the Pivot to Asia”: “… he couldn’t make room for even a sentence in his speech … his neglect of these issues … brings the rebalance to Asia into question…”

While the disappointment and frustration within the hawkish camp are understandable, Obama’s silence on East Asia as well as two exact same headlines with respect to the SotU in ArmyTimes and Navy Times — “Obama emphasises diplomacy to strengthen security” indicate that the incumbent master of the White House has made a wise move to prevent a disastrous “clash of civilisations”. In his renowned 1997 book of the same name, Samuel P. Huntington sees the states in “the West” as a civilisation group sharing among themselves with such core values as democracy, pluralism, individualism, rule of law and Christianity [Note 4: p.305, 311]; some other civilisations, such as the Muslim and the Chinese, however, do not appreciate these values and tend to resist them.

Read more: http://chinadailymail.com/2014/02/21/obama-seeks-to-avoid-clash-of-civilisations-between-china-and-the-west/