Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s most recent diplomatic trip to China was met with friction and disagreement from a Chinese government responding negatively to being bullied in its own back yard by an aggressive and militaristic United States bent on containing China’s rise.
Clinton’s visit, reports the Washington Post, “began with vicious personal attacks against her in the government-run media and continued with sharp disagreements with China’s top leaders. Then Clinton was mysteriously stood up by the future leader of the country,” an unusually stark move by typically reserved Chinese leaders.
“The visit finished Wednesday in dramatic fashion,” the Post continues, with “an announcement from the Chinese government two hours before Clinton’s departure that a former police official who had sought sanctuary at a U.S. consulate months earlier and triggered a still-roiling political scandal was being charged with defection and other crimes in what appeared to many analysts like a stick in the eye aimed at the United States.”
This was very much expected. The Obama administration’s so-called strategic pivot to Asia Pacific, which involves surging American military presence throughout the region with the aim of containing China, has been slowly provoking negative reactions across official China.
Washington has further antagonized China by beefing up its military relationships with China’s regional competitors and backing them all up in their territorial disputes with China over the resource rich South China Seas.
Washington has also been building new military bases and refurbishing old ones in the region in order to lay the ground-work for an “air-sea battle” with China. The idea is to have enough US bases peppered throughout the region so that China would be too surrounded to safely attack.
China hasn’t done anything to harm US security. Washington just doesn’t want to cede power, in any part of the globe, to any other nation.
A recent report from the CSIS predicted that next year “could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leadership’s judgment that it must respond to a US strategy that seeks to prevent China’s reemergence as a great power.”
“Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable,” the report said. “The US Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that will increase pressure on China’s incoming leadership to stand up to the United States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of America’s military posture in the region and the new US defense strategic guidelines.”
“Our two nations are trying to do something that has never been done in history,” Clinton said in a press briefing with the Chinese Premier, “which is to write a new answer to the question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet.”
One possible option is to not approach that “meeting” with military belligerence and arrogance. Perhaps that didn’t occur to Mrs. Clinton.
“Generally speaking, our relationship has been moving forward, but recently I am more or less worried,” Premier Wen Jiabao told Clinton in a slow, measured voice, deviating from the usual empty pleasantries of official Chinese meetings. “I feel that our two countries should maintain political mutual respect and strategic mutual trust. The United States should respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“This is the new normal,” one senior official travelling with Clinton told the Associated Press. “I think we have to be prepared for more tensions on these matters.”
The military provocation by the Americans is an extremely pointless, outdated and costly move since the Chinese already have the capability to deliver multiple head nukes to the US by missiles or subs, in practical terms a new MAD. True,the US has more nukes but the Chinese has enough of them to vaporize the US many times over. Encircling China and Russia will not prolong the anglo-american global status, it will only fasten it´s Titanic journey to rock bottom not prevent it.
What did she expect? She has challenged many of China's core interests- interests which are their rights under international law, and her performance with Libya and Syria has been an outrage and embarrassment for the U.S. Unfortunately, not many countries- certainly not the NAM who were unified in their support of Iran- really trust the U.S. any more, and the fear of military consequences from us can only go so far if we are falling deeper and deeper into bankruptcy and are unable to articulate a real foreign policy vision for the future.
I'm just waiting for the U.S. response if there are Chinese oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico- e.g., in the Haitian EEZ, protected by Chinese and Russian warships. The difference being that China would probably make some meaningful infrastructure investments in that much exploited country.
The U.S. has had a chance to work cooperatively with the BRIC countries, but has been p…..sing it
away to maintain hegemony.
Just how quickly would the US capitulate if the Chinese both called in their debts and refused to continue lending the Americans money!
Its all good and well to stand there and beat your chest but as said above the US isnt playing with a country that cannot play mutual glass and slag heaps, and on levels that could kill hundreds of millions of US Citizens!
China would crush the US military in their sphere of influence..period. American aircraft carriers are floating coffins, and if the US threatened to use nukes the US would be destroyed by Chinese nukes. This ridiculous "pivot" by the hapless Pentagon, and Whitehouse is a joke, and the Chinese know this. The American military does not win war's, and against China it would be a beatdown like no other..
The BRIC countrys are the new superpower with China and Russia headind them.America is powerfull but they could not win a war against the BRIC countrys expecially when their support could not even handel Lybia without ''America leading from behind''.LOL We are far to smart to allow the goverenment and tv and anything else they can think of useing it to brainwash use into excepting misery.Some of use are awake and other are not and many refuse to see the obvious.
Just a further comment. If Hillary is to negotiate effectively with her Chinese counterparts, it might be helpful if she got a better grounding in Chinese culture and Chinese diplomacy, and a better understanding of China's core interests. Furthermore, as a lawyer, she and her boss must be prepared to acknowledge the international rule of law, and the law of war, instead of shredding it for political ends and short term gain. Finally, there is the not so small matter of "face" and the understanding that it just might be counterproductive to harangue or publicly humiliate her hosts. After all, she is supposed to be a graduate of Wellesley College (though, given that the school also claims Albright as an alumna, that may not count for much)- not the Roosevelt School of Air Conditioning and Refrigeration.