Anybody trying to plumb Hillary Clinton’s thinking on China after the several hours she spent Tuesday at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will surely be disappointed.
She said almost nothing about what is arguably the most important bilateral relationship the United States has in the decade ahead.
I stayed up late watching the hearing (Beijing is 13 hours ahead of Washington), and just got a hold of a transcript to see if I had missed anything. There’s almost nothing there. Clinton included barely five sentences on China in her prepared remarks:
“China is critically important as an actor who will be changing the global landscape. We want a positive and cooperative relationship with China, one where we deepen and strengthen our ties on a number of issues and candidly address differences where they persist. But this is not a one-way effort. Much of what we will do depends on the choices China makes about its future at home and abroad.
With both Russia and China we should work together on vital security and economic issues like terrorism, proliferation, climate change, and reforming financial markets.”
In hours of questioning, fellow senators made only glancing mention of China. Clinton responded briefly to one question about the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions:
“Our goal is to end the North Korean nuclear program, both the plutonium reprocessing program and the highly enriched uranium program which there is reason to believe exists, although never quite verified, and it is our strong belief that the six-party talks, particularly the role that China is currently playing, along with our close allies South Korea and Japan, is a vehicle for us to exert pressure on North Korea in a way that is more likely to alter their behavior.”
And there was one last mention, following appeals by Sen. Jim Webb, a fellow Democrat, to hear her views on China:
“You know, dealing with Russia on START -- you know, some of that will be influenced by the economic situation that we're confronting. Trying to deal with the modernization of the military in China -- we've got to have a strategic relationship, as Senator Webb said, but we also have to make sure that they continue buying our debt. I mean, we have a lot of very complicated international economic issues that directly impact our foreign policy. So we're going to be working on those. And I welcome any and all advice that you might have.”
Beyond those remarks, Clinton’s views can only be fathomed from past statements, not from the hearing itself.
Even worse, how an Obama administration will deal with all three major East Asian powers as a whole is missing. Clinton's "cornerstone" remark on Japan and her "crucial" on ROK leave the impression it will be the same messy three-headed strategy as the Bush administration clumsily performed.
Posted by: Baltimoron | January 15, 2009 at 06:15 AM
If China was barely mentioned and Japan was not mentioned at all (or was it?), you can imagine the significance of South Korea in the overall US foreign policy. South Korea is only significant in the context of containing North Korea and China.
Posted by: Pffefer | January 15, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Part of the reason not much was said on China is that not much was asked on China.
If cabinet members also required confirmation by the House, we would probably have heard a lot more questions about how she might plan to "punish" China.
Fortunately, the Senate is a little more refined, and less focused on scoring political points during hearings than the House would be.
I take this as a good sign, and so should China. The fact that not many Senators mentioned China means that they don't view China as a big problem.
Posted by: G. E. Anderson | January 15, 2009 at 01:30 PM
G.E. Anderson's observation is spot on.
Posted by: Pffefer | January 15, 2009 at 05:34 PM
Everybody at the hearing knows China's willingness to keep buying US treasury papers is a big issue best left unspoken in public.
Big time politicians know when to shut up.
Posted by: Novice | January 16, 2009 at 01:29 AM
Yeah,its just matter of time. Let me see how long will they carry their "smart power" approach with China. As in realistic China so called "People republic of China" is the world number one enemy of Human right issue and democracy. Am I not wrong?
Posted by: kalsang kangrang | January 16, 2009 at 02:51 AM
We already tried incompetence at the State Department under Bush. Hillary wasn't even able to name the foreign ministers of China or Russia. Giving State to the Clintons is a profoundly disillusioning error on Obama's part. If his cabinet choices are any guide, the stupid, the venal and the third rate will be running the show.
Posted by: Furbin | January 16, 2009 at 09:26 PM
I agree with GE Anderson, that Clinton would not have volunteered anything that could have become a gotcha moment, but that doesn't mean legislators don't think Beijing is a problem. It's only a matter of time before some incident, or combination of incidents reveals the array of disagreement about China, much has the auto bailout flushed GOP connections to Japanese automakers. It just wasn't Clinton who had to beware the gotcha moment, but also the inquisitors. It seems legislators would welcome a low-stress, boring press day for every appointee.
Posted by: Baltimoron | January 17, 2009 at 12:31 AM
You people demean the office
by your judgy inquiry into
a new USA administration.
Are you disgruntled always?
Or do a perp walk as the devil's advocate? "Pullease,Who?" if any at all of you or our soon illustrious chosen can name our most important leaders; domestic or foreign respective contacts?
Hillary is not yours or the media nemesis.
She is enviable. Like Condi Rice, why do women get the
scapegoat with their paycheck?
Do women in power threaten? She could stay safe and serve in NY,
would you? Can you wear the shoes?
Posted by: Nowelle | January 19, 2009 at 12:25 AM
Keeping one's cards close to the vest is a time-honored tradition for poker players and politicians.
Posted by: Elena | January 19, 2009 at 04:16 PM
Having heard what the new Secretary of State said that "no nation is more important to the United States than China" (CBS News Jan 25,2009: Obama-China Ties Off to Shaky Start), I can't help start worrying what kind of diplomatic exercise, hopefully not policy, to be expected from her. Following her suggestion, those who are citizenship conscious no doubt
can learn or feel that Uncle Sam tends to treat the other nations as secondary in importance. True or false, if she had ever wished to save the people of these other nations from tingling a little, could'nt she just "think of it always but speak
of it never"? Did'nt Winton Churchhill say so?
Posted by: Old Bob | January 25, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Having heard what the new Secretary of State said that "no nation is more important to the United States than China" (CBS News Jan 25,2009: Obama-China Ties Off to Shaky Start), I can't help start worrying what kind of diplomatic exercise, hopefully not policy, to be expected from her. Following her suggestion, those who are citizenship conscious no doubt
can learn or feel that Uncle Sam tends to treat the other nations as secondary in importance. True or false, if she had ever wished to save the people of these other nations from tingling a little, could'nt she just "think of it always but speak
of it never"? Did'nt Winston Churchhill say so?
Posted by: Old Bob | January 25, 2009 at 10:47 AM
I feel that one world squeezing. Do we have to actually fulfull the Christian Bible? I mean is it absolutely necessary to give the world a big ole hug?
Let's keep the "evil" down and let natural selection have its course.
Aritficial natural selection, America knows how to do it best: a CASHIER at Wal-Mart (Hilary's Old board) asked another co-worker what was a twenty dollar cash back on $2.13. "Please pinch me."
We have no business telling the world to run it's business. For example, we send our jobs to China to make us toys, yet we "refrain from telling them 'how to make em.'" Surely, that was on purpose to get a cheaper product--and the lead scare starts all over again--didn't Americans deal with that already in the 70s? Our business world is closely tied with our bureaucrats--when it fails, how much of "us" shall go down with it? "Points to the economy."
If there is no division then there can be no accountablity. We play officials and we don't have a clue on what the outcomes will be--a laywers concept, to be expedient, is not a business term--to have value. One is myopic and the other is foreshadowing. Your mixing two novels with two different points-of-views. So, "Who is telling this story?"
Posted by: zarxo | January 27, 2009 at 09:59 AM