President Obama began a tour of Asia earlier this week. He's currently in South Korea, and is expected in Malaysia tomorrow.

It's a trip that was supposed to happen last fall but was cancelled due to the partial government shutdown. Obama is only the second U.S. president in history to travel to the country — the last was Lyndon Johnson in 1966.

To talk about the significance of the Malaysia-US relationship we turn to Amitav Acharya, an expert on Southeast Asia from American University.