Cancellation of Trip by Obama Plays to Doubts of Asia Allies Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images President Xi Jinping of China spoke on Friday at the Malaysia-China Economic Summit in Kuala Lumpur. BEIJING - As President Obama made apologetic calls to Asia to cancel his planned trip, China's leader, Xi Jinping was taking a star turn in some of the same countries Mr. Obama would have visited. Bagus Indahono/European Pressphoto Agency President Xi Jinping of China, right, with Marzuki Alie, left, the speaker of Indonesia's House of Representatives. This week, Mr. Xi became the first foreigner to address the Indonesian Parliament, offering billions of dollars in trade to the country that was Mr. Obama's childhood home. Mr. Xi then moved on to Malaysia, before preparing to attend two Asian summits that Mr. Obama had to abandon because of the government shutdown. With the cancellation of the visits, the much-promoted but already anemic American "pivot" to Asia was further undercut, leaving allies in the region increasingly doubtful the United States will be a viable counterbalance to a rising China. The news comes after Mr. Obama's U-turn on intervention in Syria amid signs of a new American insularity, and as the revolt in the House of Representatives left Asians puzzling over America's messy democracy and wondering if the United States would be able - or willing - to stand up to China in a confrontation. That wariness, Asian officials and analysts say, is giving China a new edge in the tug-of-war between the two countries over influence in Asia, with the gravitational pull of China's economy increasingly difficult to resist. "How can the United States be a reliable partner when President Obama can't get his own house in order?" asked Richard Heydarian, a foreign policy adviser to the Philippine Congress and a lecturer in international affairs at Ateneo de Manila University in Manila. It makes people wonder: is the United States really in the position to come to our aid in the event of a military conflict. And in rare public criticism of the United States by a senior Singaporean official, Bilahari Kausikan, the recently retired permanent secretary of the Foreign Ministry, said in a speech in Hanoi on Thursday that in the face of China's challenge, Washington - and its ally, Japan - were "not exerting sufficient countervailing economic influence." China's mounting investments in Southeast Asia - including the establishment of a $50 billion Chinese infrastructure bank to rival banks influenced by the United States - are no longer "just a matter of business" but "a core Chinese interest," Mr. Kausikan warned. "Where economics goes, strategy inevitably follows," he said. That is not to say the United States will lose its standing in the region it has long dominated anytime soon. Many Asian countries remain wary of China's territorial ambitions and had welcomed the "pivot" as a protection against extensive Chinese claims in the South China and East China seas. The presence of tens of thousands of American troops in Japan and South Korea, and of naval fleets roaming the Pacific, add to that projection of power. As if to bolster that point, the American secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, visited South Korea and Japan this week, and the secretary of state, John Kerry, was in Japan, for talks to beef up the American alliances with those two countries. In Japan, the United States signed an agreement that allows the deployment of American drones there for the first time and gives implicit backing to Japan's slow but steady moves to strengthen its once powerful military. But even in Japan, doubts were expressed about the willingness of the United States to back its longtime ally in the event of a conflict between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. The conservative government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has already increased the military budget, partly from fear that the United States would not come to its aid despite its treaty obligations. "The analogy is when Obama initially tried to use military strikes against Syria, but then they didn't happen," said Ken Jimbo, associate professor of international security at Keio University in Tokyo. What if North Korea is aggressive towards South Korea, how would the Obama administration react? What about the Senkaku: if China is assertive with its maritime forces would Washington provide any physical commitment? Reporting was contributed by Martin Fackler in Tokyo, Choe Sang-Hun in Seoul, Joe Cochrane in Jakarta and Floyd Whaley in the Philippines.