Asians uneasy over potential Obama protectionist trade stance

“The financial crisis has a great impact on the world. If Obama can reverse the tide, then certainly it’s good,” said Liao Yi, deputy general manager of CHiNT Electronics Group, one of China’s biggest producers of power-transmission equipment.

Japanese investors are hopeful that Democrat Obama’s win, as well as his party’s bigger majorities in the U.S. Congress, will help speed along further measures to lift the U.S. out of its economic woes, said Toshikazu Horiuchi, equity strategist at Cosmo Securities in Tokyo.

“There are expectations now for prompt economic stimulus measures,” he said.

Most Asian stock markets rose Wednesday, partly on relief that the next U.S. leader was chosen, lifting months of uncertainty. Japan’s Nikkei index jumped 4.5 percent to 9,521.24 and Hong Kong’s benchmark rose 3.2 percent to 14,840.16.

Still, Kazuo Mizuno, chief economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. in Tokyo, cautioned that a new president could not deliver a quick fix for U.S. economic problems, which are dragging on global growth. He said the United States will likely need foreign financing — from Japan, China and the Middle East — to pay for bailouts of financial firms saddled with bad debts and other measures.

“Changing the president is not going to be enough to save the American economy,” Mizuno said. “Even the president is not going to be able to change America without help from the world.”

Many expressed unease about Obama’s pledges to vigorously enforce trade laws and criticism of a pending trade pact with South Korea that he says fails to address an imbalance in auto shipments. The Democrats, traditionally viewed as more protectionist on trade than Republicans, now control the presidency and Congress.

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