Clinton on China relations: ‘A more comprehensive approach’
The economy will be at the center of the U.S.–China relationship in the Obama administration, but a “comprehensive dialogue” is necessary. That’s the word from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking with reporters recently. The transcript is, strangely, undated.
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, your colleague – now your colleague, Tim Geithner, raised some eyebrows with comments he made about China in his written testimony to the Senate. And I know that you are interested in the State Department having a robust role in economics as well as diplomacy. My question is about China. Should we read anything broader into what he said? Could we expect the Administration to have a slightly more vigorous diplomacy toward China? And also, what role do you see for the State Department in that relationship? Would you like to see State be the central player? I know under Mr. Paulson, he sort of consolidated a lot of that at the Treasury Department.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Mark, we need a comprehensive dialogue with China. The Strategic Dialogue that was begun in the Bush Administration turned into an economic dialogue, and that’s a very important aspect of our relationship with China, but it is not the only aspect of our relationship.
So we’re going to be working together in the government across our agencies to design a more comprehensive approach that we think will be more in keeping with the important role that China is playing and will be playing as both a regional and international player on so many important issues.
So I look forward to working with my colleagues in government, in the White House, Treasury Department, and elsewhere, in forging such an approach. And I look very much forward to working with my counterparts in the Chinese Government, because I think there is – there are many opportunities for us to cooperate going forward.
And given the current global economic crisis, you know, we have to work our way through that with the minimum amount of damage to global capacity to restart the economy. You know, obviously, our economic problems here at home mean that people are being laid off not only here in America, but also in China. And so the economy will always be a centerpiece of our relationship, but we want it to be part of a broader agenda, and that’s what we’re working to achieve.
The straw man of Internet-fueled civil discourse
Just because people are online doesn’t mean they engage in civil public discourse. This simple idea has emerged as one thread of conventional wisdom in recent years, especially in the context of the People’s Republic of China. In an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, Rebecca MacKinnon reinforces the idea:
Back in 2001 a U.S. spyplane made an emergency landing on Hainan island after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet which crashed into the sea. If people in the Chinese Internet chatrooms had gotten their way, the U.S. crew would be in a Chinese jail today. In a recent interview with The Atlantic’s James Fallows, the President of the China Investment Corporation Gao Xiqing pointed out that his P.R. department is inundated with public comments calling for him to sell U.S. dollar assets.
This sort of argument, parallel to the idea that the United States might not like what it sees if some states hold truly democratic elections, has become so common that I wonder whether MacKinnon can still reasonably say, as she does in the letter, “Americans tend to think of the Internet as the medium that will inevitably free the Chinese people of authoritarian rule.” Maybe my reading diet has become more isolated, but I don’t hear that argument anymore except as a foil. Is the narrative of a liberalizing Internet medium becoming a straw man?
links for 2009-01-28
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"From 1910 to 1940, a million immigrants seeking a better life in the U.S., most of them Chinese, were processed on Angel Island, a tiny dot of land in the San Francisco Bay, roughly 45 minutes from San Francisco."
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Another post related to Ethan's mapping ideas.
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mentioned in Ethan Zuckerman's talk
Remembering the Year of the Rat (photos)
Life passed into the Year of the Ox yesterday with little fanfare at Transpacifica headquarters. There were memories, however, of an explosive night in Beijing a year ago as we rang in the Year of the Rat. As a commemoration, I offer these photographs—from a walk by the half-done CCTV tower to a midnight walk across the Caochangdi district of Beijing through a sea of spent explosives.
Happy New Year, everyone! (I’m not going there like everybody else.)
links for 2009-01-27
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Ezra writes: "China just decided to spend $123 billion by 2011 to build a universal health care system for its $1.3 billion people. So they'll likely have universal health care before we will. This American exceptionalism thing is getting out of hand." The saving's rate he later notes isn't exactly comparable with the U.S. number, but he has a point here: "so China is trying to make it safe for its citizens to spend, which means making future expenses more predictable, which means offering health care coverage." The real question is whether this announcement will mean health care for all Chinese; that would be a big job and maybe more expensive than $123B.
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Evan takes to the blogs.
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Event listing for Ethan Zuckerman. Feed available, and video available later.
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(Also, this massive image is great.)
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On mapping trans-state infrastructure relationships, and how we're not doing enough of it yet. Later today, Zuckerman speaks at Berkman on this.
