The Clinton Doctrine, Made in Asia
Washington openly challenged Beijing in Hanoi late last month. Chinese officials are still fuming, but they had it coming.
On July 23 in the Vietnamese capital, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the ASEAN Regional Forum, announced that the peaceful resolution of competing territorial claims to the South China Sea is a U.S. “national interest.” “The United States supports a collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants for resolving the various territorial disputes without coercion,” she declared. “We oppose the use or threat of force by any claimant.” Although Mrs. Clinton did not specifically use the word “China” in this context, the secretary of state noted that Beijing’s claims to the entire South China Sea were without foundation, “invalid” as a senior American official privately put it.
Chinese diplomats were stunned. They knew the issue might come up at the conference but assumed the United States would not oppose China’s expansive — ludicrous — claims. When Mrs. Clinton had in fact done so, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi left the room for an hour. When he came back, he went off on a 30-minute rant. “China is a big country and other countries are small countries,” he said as he stared at his counterpart from Singapore, George Yeo. “And that’s just a fact.”
Yes, China is big, and it has been successful in using its heft to intimidate not only the small but also the large. Take the United States, for instance. Chinese supremo Hu Jintao had humiliated President Obama last November at the summit in Beijing. Before that, he had tamed George W. Bush, who not only failed to stop the Chinese run for regional dominance but also aided it. Dubya, most notably, put Beijing at the center of global efforts to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons program by having China host the spectacularly unsuccessful six-party talks.
The Chinese took Bush’s generosity as a signal of weakness and pressed the advantage with his successor. They forgot about Hillary, however. More important, they neglected to take into account the inherent strength of America’s democracy.
America, like most democracies, can be pushed around at first by hardline regimes, especially large ones. As observers going back to Tocqueville have noted, representative governments will do most anything to avoid trouble abroad. And China took advantage of the situation as it tried to force the U.S. Navy out of the South China Sea. In March 2009, for example, Chinese boats interfered with the Impeccable, an unarmed Navy reconnaissance vessel. Washington, inexplicably, failed to complain in public about the harassment, which was so serious it constituted an attack on the vessel — and, therefore, on the United States. Since then, there have been unreported incidents between Chinese and American ships in Asian waters.
Americans, of course, are not the only targets of Beijing’s aggressiveness. China’s navy, it appears, also harassed Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Indonesian boats in recent months. In light of the increasing Chinese activity in the South China Sea, nations in the region were asking for the United States to assert leadership. As a result, Mrs. Clinton issued her now-famous words in Hanoi.
Hillary is doing a fine job as SoS and to use a phrase heard over the weekend, she “has the cojones” to stand up to North Korea and its protector. We are lucky to have her and Robert Gates in this administration.
Sorry, but I can’t agree with you about Hillary doing a “fine job.”
Consider that absurd Reset Button incident with which she kicked off her tenure. The fact that the Russian word was wrong was the least of the problems. A gag gift? Giggling about the hopenchange from Mean Old Bush? It was straight out of junior-high school. I am no spring chicken and I have seen a lot of bad moves and even stupidity come out of the State Department, but I have never seen US diplomacy look so undignified, so silly in my life.
Add the horrible gaffe about the Falklands, the trashing of Arizona in Ecuador, the snotty response to the young African man who asked what her husband thought, the pompous lecturing to 3rd-World countries that they don’t tax people enough. And that’s just off the top of my head.
I will concede that she has improved after gaining experience, but then, where could she go but up?
“Washington openly challenged Beijing in Hanoi late last month. Chinese officials are still fuming, but they had it coming.”
Politely phrased words in diplomatic circles are not an open challenge. A carrier group in the middle of the PLAN’s China Sea exercises would be a challenge.
And a good intelligence gathering vantage point as well.
America, like most democracies.
Yeechhh.WRONG
1. I’m all for being firm with the Chinese, but, unless we had tried backdoor channels without results, I’m not sure it was productive to ambush them in front of other Asian countries.
2. After the invasion of Georgia, Hillary Clinton offered Russia a reset button. Now she is talking tough to China. Is there a coherent US foreign policy, or are we flailing around?
3. The Chinese…neglected to take into account the inherent strength of America’s democracy. The US governing class has lost the confidence of the country’s bedrock citizens. That doesn’t mean America is a despotism at this time, but it says something about ‘the inherent strength of America’s democracy’.
4. Gordon Chang’s PJM bio cites his 2001 book “The Coming Collapse of China”. I wish he had explained how his current concerns relate to the thesis of his book.
After the invasion of Georgia, Hillary Clinton offered Russia a reset button. Now she is talking tough to China. Is there a coherent US foreign policy, or are we flailing around?
Or is Hillary running for president in 2012 by deliberately flouting the administration’s China policy? After all, a firm stance with anyone outside of Arizona or New Haven police officers is a 180′ reversal for Obama, so I have my doubts whether Hillary is following the direction the president wants the talks to take.
That’s an interesting thought, BrianH. It’s not a great leap of the imagination to assume that every single thing Hillary does is in her self-interest, and any alignment with her official duties or the national welfare is coincidental. If she resigns or gets fired supposedly because Obama is too soft, she gets a pretext for a primary challenge. (OT: my guess is that Obama will offer her the 2012 VP nomination and a clear track to 2016.)
How far can we go in standing up to a Communist nation that finances us? Until we break free of that dependency (and also break free of Obama’s wussiness towards our enemies) success will be very hard to achieve.
Hillary is the smartest woman in the world! HILLARY 2012!
I too think Hilary is positioning herself for a run at the White House. Now she can say she is “tough” on the chicoms. Look for her to hurt obama at every step while feathering her own nest. . . if it helps our country in the process, that is just an accident. . . I think she will be out of the O’s administration by December.
The idea of borrowing money from China to underwrite a military posture in the South China sea for the benefit of Taiwan, Vietnam or south korea does not appeal to me. We have 2 wars, a mounting deficit and do not need a confrontation with the chinese. Particularly in their back yard.
This author consistently suggests that the US get tough with North Korea and China: yet he smoothly omits any suggestion that the countries in that area of the world stand up to China and North Korea on their own, or at least take a stance we can support as opposed to us carrying the laboring oar.
Moreover, unless the US is willing to station battle groups there and risk one or more live fire engagements (leaving us stuck again defending “allies” that can’t seem to be bothered to defend themselves), I suggest we lay off the rhetoric.
Agree. Hilary is not doing much to prove her loyalty to the Ogovernment
It’s amazing that CFR member continues to support securing north, and south Korean borders, but can say nothing about the illegal alien Mexican invasion.
Just like a CFR North American Union supporter.
After living and working in China for over a year and a half…I strongly support a shift in policy towards the organization that calls itself “the people’s republic of china” from the US.. I now tell the people that ask me, “Do you like china?” flat-out, “No”….That’s been a digression from “Yes, I do.” to “Sometimes” to where it stands today. I tell them the chinese have demonstrated to me a business acumen akin to that of mice. They chew holes into other people’s securities and if they get caught, their only recourse is to make more mice….Mice are not friendly…just cute to some. If there ever was a supremacist attitude being fostered through a racist inclination, I would say china is the new Nazis…if they aren’t already the undiscovered foundations of the old ones. (Personally, truthfully, I had every female I courted here rebuff me on the basis of my not being “chinese”…To my upbringing this is skewered social engineering…reinforced in terminology such as “lao wai” or “foreigner”, which is to say, “you are not one of us, how unfortunate for you..”…At the end of my stay here though, after all the deceits and denials, I’ve learned to take that term “foreigner” as high compliment. Before coming here, from about 2003 to 2009, I used to probe the justifications for US involvement in the Korean War, finding little…..Then I privately engaged the Sino-business acumen….Now I see the just cause that was involved in protecting US ethic and moral standard especially in business affairs. It is most likely a racist inclination that was being exploited and utilized then in affairs associated with the US occupation of Japan. I would say that the sino-business acumen today still maintains a strong presence in the Asiatic agenda and that the business atmosphere is polluted.
Also my experiences here tell me there is a great deal of recent mimicry of the US in chinese legal resolutions and concerns, but there is a huge disparity when it comes to enforcement or debate within the chinese society concerning these resolutions. Lip service. Legal enforcement in chinese society seems to react to only the greatest of disturbances and fatalities and does so more on the basis of removing a bad note from divine harmony or something of that order. There seems little redress or address to social improprieties. Unless of course it is to the nation’s advantage. In the US , “God helps those who helkp themselves”, in china “God helps those who helps the chinese”
There is also a reckless population expansion going on (that is racially chinese) in the country right now along with its upsurge in urban development….A ghettoization of the countryside….This invariably compromises the world’s future resources in terms of consumption…even as the world has begun cautioning its populations in these regards…This is sure provocation to the supremacist idea…especially in a matriarch society. My feeling is that the US should start demanding some of those jobs it has exported to the country in goodwill either back to its own soil for the opportunities and investments of its own infrastructure or china will need to start suspending the restrictions and regulations of its policies so that a greater extent of foreign labor has access to those jobs and china is willing to host them without discrimination. China cannot emmulate the US ordinance without a demographically, racially, diverse population..It does not have the same economic, social or even global challenges towards the greater good without that dynamic…Therefore it is not progressive. Not just the wealthy of the world, which seems china’s number one criteria. Too often, those who I have worked with in china, have tried to intimidate me in situations of arbitration by the “this is china!” clause. I have heard from others I am not alone in this. I am willing to fight this tendency also.…It usually is the wealthy who are more apt to buy their way out….which becomes another one of china’s incentives for inviting them..
I have been educating many students here in forums of oral English and I have also witnessed a great extent of proficiency in those students and populations in the hopes that it would bring greater discourse and deliberation between our cultures, and yet when the occasion arises where such skills would be beneficial to my person, (I have no proficiency in the chinese dialect), those very same students and populations instead take the subversive tact of with-holding those skills in my defense. I find that ethically perverse as I am here by their invitation. It also leads me to regard their impetus for being more receptive to foreigners who exhibit a proficiency in the chinese dialect as being slightly more than mere conversation ….I think perhaps it is because those foreigners who have the ability to navigate and communicate the vast chinese populace by their own accord, prove to be greater national security threats than those who cannot..because of their greater degree of independence.. So the “hip” young, foreigners that appear popular with the chinese young people because they can openly communicate with them are really being duped, monitored and directed. This “hip” crowd remains essentially tokens here, which only serves to enhance the effect of being “chosen”.. and “modern”. (for the chinese to have attractive foreigners endorsing their country is a boon…) If you don’t speak chinese, you get pushed around…if you do, you get escorted. Neither gesture is too friendly in essence.That is my observations..of course since I do not know chinese, I cannot verify this…but I sometimes have been given the feeling that the chinese are skeptical of my proficiency with their dialect…whenever I exhibit a greater proficiency,which has arose out of practicality here…suddenly it seems they are suspicious.
Interesting perspective seansarto, thanks. I really don’t like China at all and really am tired of the way America lets them get away with so much childish behavior. IMHO, the Chicoms are trying to have the success America was blessed to achieve long ago, except forcing it along under communism on the backs of their peasants and by theft of intellectual property. But it won’t work – freedom is not something they understand and capitalism is “evil” and our restraint is “weakness”. Apparently Chinese leadership thinks if they build lots of tall buildings and build up their military, they will be awesome like America. Nope, it will still be the same miserable country with over a billion people living under the Communist Jackboot. I thank God I was born in the good ole USA… PS – with regard to the Chinese women you mentioned, might want to pass and go for the Japanese women
I’m sorry sir, you rant was quite humorous. I know your caste-type exactly, and you seem to have taken every obstacle, every difficulty, that comes with attempting to integrate into a (very different) foreign country /culture as something wrong with THAT culture. Everyone else should do it THIS way….
Don’t buy China’s own hype. Economic might aside, it’s mostly third world, a developing country “growing through” unprecedented growing pains, and all that entails, corruption, money worship, ignorance, poverty, social unrest, blah blah blah. You want a medal for meeting some assholes over there? No bonus points for them also being businessmen, you’re kidding, right?
(i have over four years living and working in china)
ps, learn the language, all of a sudden everyone is no longer a threat. friendships bloom, and you know their not tooling you for english. Chinese will gladly rip off anyone, Chinese OR foreign, and your painting a target on your white lao wai forehead
Hilldawg acting tough ? Sounds to me she’s been coached by Bill and as gs brought up, she might be looking for an excuse to get fired. Based on the Messiah’s dwindling popularity, there is no doubt that she will be making a run for 2012.