Jakarta regards Mr. Obama as a local boy made good, and he remains extremely popular throughout Indonesia. But his last-minute postponements of three previously planned visits here have clearly sapped the enthusiasm surrounding his homecoming, even among his most ardent supporters.

Looking at the seemingly inscrutable actions of the men who rule Beijing, Washington often assumes many in the Chinese government to be anti-American, whereas the Chinese public is pro-American. The reality is almost exactly the opposite.

In June 2009, addressing a packed audience at Cairo University, US President Barack Obama offered Muslims "a new beginning" based on "mutual interest and mutual respect". The speech was well received. The president was riding a wave of goodwill.

To understand the lead sentence of yesterday's NY Times p.1 lead on Obama's visit to India, you need more background on US public diplomacy there.

A female tribal leader working to get more girls into classrooms, in a rural society that places boys first. A former civil servant running a website to battle corruption. Schoolchildren who got the first couple dancing for the Hindu festival Diwali. These were some of the Indians whom President Obama met Sunday on the second day of his four-nation Asia tour.

The town hall event, featuring Obama as a professorial host, was a moment of unscripted public diplomacy as he sought to bridge the divide between two bitter rivals.

It would seem curious if an Indonesian president made an official visit to the United States with the object of engaging with the Christian world rather than with a superpower that separates God and government. So do not expect President Obama to use his visit to the predominantly Muslim land of his boyhood to engage with the wider Muslim community.

Not long after Barack Obama was elected president, the United States Embassy in India printed a postcard showing him sitting in his old Senate office beneath framed photographs of his political heroes... The postcard was a trinket of public diplomacy, a souvenir of the new president’s affinity for India.