About Transpacifica

Online since August 2006, Transpacifica is a blog and online resource on global affairs in Asia and the Americas. In its first year, this website was known as Transpacific Triangle, and it explored the trilateral relationship between China, Japan, and the United States. In September 2007, the site became Transpacifica and moved to transpacifica.net, in order to accommodate issues involving other countries in East Asia and the Americas.

Editor

Graham Webster is a journalist, consultant, and researcher based in New York City. He has lived and worked in Beijing, Boston, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, and elsewhere. He holds a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a bachelor’s in international studies and journalism from Northwestern University. More information and contact information is at gwbstr.com.

Copyright

Authors hold the copyright for their original contributions. Unless otherwise noted, all materials published on Transpacifica are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license and may be republished with attribution to the author and Transpacifica on any noncommercial platform that also publishes under the same license. Other entities wishing to republish Transpacifica materials should contact the editors for permission.

Disclaimer

Unless otherwise noted, the views expressed in any article, comment, or other piece of content on Transpacifica are those of its author and not necessarily the official position of Transpacifica or any of the author’s employers. Wait long enough, and they may not even be the official position of the author.

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  • http://www.facebook.com ChipWood

    Hi Folks,

    Having attended MLK’s great ’63 speech, graduated from the John F. Kennedy Officers School for Special Warfare, started work in ’69 on bringing a man of color to the White House with a black fellow Special Forces soldier at a COSMIC security level, and being and early advisor to David Axelrod & President Obama more than a decade ago, may I can offer some comfort here? Obama’s brain is in good condition, and he knows the following:
    1. He has not now a personal clue about China: He has never been here and looked around in depth. (I live and work in China)
    2. All his current knowledge of China is hearsay or second hand evidence spanning the entire spectrum of opinion, though much of that evidence is somewhat trustworthy.
    3. Meeting PL Hu Jintao was only a first step.
    4. His visit to China will go swimmingly. Perhaps he will speak at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, where his healing words could win America a great deal of needed good will. Hopefully, he will bring the family and let his kids interact with local kids, which would be of more life-time value to them than staying at Sidwell Friends School. (SF is an excellent Quaker school, but is might be diplomatically wise to remember history, as the Chinese do. The Quakers had the monopoly on Opium imports to America in +- 1850 in between the two Opium Wars here. So perhaps the Quaker T-shirt can be left at home…)
    5. His personal understanding of China and how it can play out in America’s long term interests will be limited until he returns from his visit, and analyzes America’s reaction to his visit. At that point, his understanding can start to serve him and America.
    6. Meanwhile, President Obama is a very busy man!