United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday said that Asian countries were looking at Washington for 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 have 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.
"And so part of the message I wanted to send last week at the State of the Union was we've been through tougher times before, we've been through bigger challenges before, and we've always come out stronger, more united, and have remained a beacon of hope around the world because -- I think it was Churchill who said that the Americans always end up doing the right thing after they've tried every other alternative," he said.
"That's true. We muddle our way through because of messy democracy and it's in our nature to be contentious and have these big arguments, but ultimately we choose the right path. And that's what the world is counting on right now as well," Obama said in his remarks.
Obama said his campaign's job in this year is to make a case for what his administration has done, and "to lift up the prospects and possibility of an American where, once again, people who are responsible and doing the right thing are able to get ahead."
Even though it will be tough, he said his determination is stronger now than it was in 2008.
"I'm absolutely convinced that we're on the right track; we just have to fight for it," he said.