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The President was sitting between arch rival Japanese leader Yoshihiko Noda and China's Wen Jiabao
Barack Obama has spent the past-few days on a whistle-stop tour of south-east Asia, and it looked as though the hectic travel was taking its toll as the President
yawned his way through a crunch regional summit this morning.
He was pictured looking obviously tired as he sat between China's premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh.
While Obama may not have been paying close attention, the stakes could hardly be higher as the Asian giants edged ever closer to the possibility of war over a handful of
tiny islands in the South China Sea whose ownership is disputed.
Neither the U.S. nor China is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but each has strong supporters in the 10-member group.
ASEAN summit host Cambodia, an ally of China, has tried to shift the focus to economic concerns, but Beijing's territorial disputes with countries including U.S. ally the
Philippines have overshadowed discussions.
The disagreement sparked a tense moment Monday at the summit when Philippine President Benigno Aquino III challenged Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had
tried to cut out discussion of territorial disputes.
Obama was expected to reiterate during the summit that Washington takes no sides in the territorial disputes but will not allow any country to resort to force and block
access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial and military gateway to Asia's heartland.
But fears that the conflicts could spark Asia's next war have kept governments on edge.
The President was sitting between arch rival Japanese leader Yoshihiko Noda and China's Wen Jiabao
Barack Obama has spent the past-few days on a whistle-stop tour of south-east Asia, and it looked as though the hectic travel was taking its toll as the President
yawned his way through a crunch regional summit this morning.
He was pictured looking obviously tired as he sat between China's premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh.
While Obama may not have been paying close attention, the stakes could hardly be higher as the Asian giants edged ever closer to the possibility of war over a handful of
tiny islands in the South China Sea whose ownership is disputed.
Neither the U.S. nor China is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but each has strong supporters in the 10-member group.
ASEAN summit host Cambodia, an ally of China, has tried to shift the focus to economic concerns, but Beijing's territorial disputes with countries including U.S. ally the
Philippines have overshadowed discussions.
The disagreement sparked a tense moment Monday at the summit when Philippine President Benigno Aquino III challenged Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had
tried to cut out discussion of territorial disputes.
Obama was expected to reiterate during the summit that Washington takes no sides in the territorial disputes but will not allow any country to resort to force and block
access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial and military gateway to Asia's heartland.
But fears that the conflicts could spark Asia's next war have kept governments on edge.
