Pragmatic diplomacy

The Barack Obama administration has put a new face on American diplomacy, one emphasizing "smart power" and multi-lateral cooperation, indicating that the US is eager for outside help to extricate itself from its current diplomatic and economic predicaments.

On her maiden trip, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose East Asia, with Japan and China as the first and last stop respectively. In her visit to China, Clinton downplayed the human rights issue, which had long plagued bilateral relations.

During her stop in Japan, she extended an invitation to Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, who is suffering from declining public approval, to the White House as the first foreign guest.

All this demonstrates the new US administration's goodwill gestures to two of its largest creditors in the global financial crisis.

At the end of last year, China held $700 billion in US Treasury Notes, or 35.4 percent of the US debt held by foreign central banks. About 65 percent of China's enormous foreign reserves have gone to US treasuries. Japan is immediately behind China, with a total of $577.10 billion US Treasury Notes.

The Obama administration has initiated a $787 billion stimulus plan. That figure is expected to increase, so the US still needs its major creditors to continue to purchase its Treasury Notes.

The US also needs the cooperation and support of other countries to pull out of the quagmire of Iraq and to move its anti-terrorism focus to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Without cooperation from the two South Asian nations and the Islamic world, as well as the support of Japan and the European Union, the US would be incapable of meeting those strategic needs.

Because of all this, the US has kept a particularly low profile and a modest attitude in its diplomacy, whether it was US special envoy Richard Holbrooke's trip to Southeast Asia, special envoy George Mitchell's Middle East visit or Vice-President Joe Biden's Munich speech.

Beijing News

(China Daily 03/09/2009 page2)