Abroad, Obama's Victory Brings Demands for Attention

LONDON - Europe and other parts of the world awoke Wednesday to an unchanged global vista, seeking comfort from the familiar after President Obama's re-election but vying, too, for his attention and favor as he embarks on a second term with many major issues unresolved from the first.

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In marked contrast to a euphoric surge four years ago when many hailed Mr. Obama's victory as a herald of renewal, the mood was more subdued.

In Moscow's American-style Starlite Diner, for instance, Igor Sinebok, 25, a student of politics, recalled the scene four years ago, when his fellow politics students gathered to watch Mr. Obama's first victory.

This time his vigil was more somber, and his assessment reflected the nuances of Russian opinion. “I don't think any of us can say we are disappointed in Obama,” he said. “Only a radically conservative Russian could say he is unhappy with what has happened between our two countries in the last four years.”

The clamor for the re-elected president's attention came particularly clearly from Israel, where Danny Danon, the deputy speaker of Parliament, evoked “the existential threat posed to Israel and the West by the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. ” He urged President Obama to reassert “the deep and meaningful relationship between the U.S. and Israel,” and visit Israel for the first time as president.

That call seemed mirrored in Malaysia, where Prime Minister Najib Razak urged Mr. Obama to “continue in his efforts to foster understanding and respect between the United States and Muslims around the world” - a relationship to which the American leader committed himself at the beginning of his first term.

Before the outcome was known, Chinese analysts had summed up what seemed to be a widespread calculation that the Chinese leadership, itself scheduled to change in two days time, favored Mr. Obama “because he's familiar,” said Wu Xinbo, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. A victory by Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, would have made China “a little nervous because he might bring new policies.”

Chinese President Hu Jintao, praised the “hard work of the Chinese and American sides” over Mr. Obama's first term in creating “positive developments” in their relationship.

“Maintaining the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations not only benefits the people of the two countries and is in the common interests of the people of the two countries, but also helps to maintain peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region and the world as a whole,” the Chinese leader said.

“With an eye toward the future, China is willing, together with the United States, to continue to make efforts to promote the cooperative partnership between China and the United States so as to achieve new and even greater development, bringing better benefits to the people of the two countries and the people of the world.”

Across Europe, many greeted news of the Obama re-election with a sense of mild relief, though it was not immediately clear whether those feelings were accompanied by any enhanced expectation that, armed with a new mandate, the Obama administration would find solutions to the huge challenges still facing it in Iran, Syria and the Middle East.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to a camp in Jordan for Syrian refugees, British Prime Minister David Cameron said early on Wednesday: “Right here in Jordan I'm hearing appalling stories of what is happening inside Syria.” He added: “One of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis,” Reuters reported.

Britain is a close ally of successive American administrations in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in its response to the so-called Arab Spring, priding itself on what Mr. Cameron and others call a “special relationship.” Washington's reach elsewhere is more ambiguous.

After his election in 2008, for instance, he promised a “reset” with Moscow. But the United States and Russia took opposing positions on the Libyan and Syrian crises and the Kremlin has depicted the American response to anti-government protests in Moscow as undermining the return to power of President Vladimir V. Putin.

Russian leaders “feel they have been duped and victimized and the U.S. has it in for them,” said Vladimir Pozner, who hosts a talk show on Russia's Channel One. “There is not a lot of trust in any kind of American administration wanting to improve relations with Russia. There is a feeling that if Russia disappeared, the United States would be overjoyed.”

Reporting was contributed by Jane Perlez and Keith Bradsher in Beijing, Jodi Rudoren in Jerusalem and Ellen Barry and Andrew Roth in Moscow.