11/23/09: Obama Failed in Asia
Besides his gaffe-tastic bow to the Japanese Emperor, there weren't many memorable moments during President Obama's recent trip to Asia. There weren't many successes either:
President Obama’s nine-day trip to Asia is worth a look back to fix two potent problems, past and future. First, the trip’s limited value per day of presidential effort suggests a disturbing amateurishness in managing America’s power. On top of the inexcusably clumsy review of Afghan policy and the fumbling of Mideast negotiations, the message for Mr. Obama should be clear: He should stare hard at the skills of his foreign-policy team and, more so, at his own dominant role in decision-making. Something is awry somewhere, and he’s got to fix it.Source: The Daily Beast ["Amateur Hour at the White House" by Leslie H. Gelb]
The Times of London agrees:
Obama’s Asian adventure perceptibly increased the murmurings of dissent when he returned to Washington last week, having failed to wring any public concessions from China on any major issue.
For most Americans, the most talked-about moment of the trip was not the Great Wall visit but his low bow to Emperor Akihito of Japan, which the president’s right-wing critics assailed as “a spineless blunder” and excessively deferential.
While some commentators acknowledged that behind-the-scenes progress may have been made on issues such as North Korea, financial stability and human rights, even the pro-Obama New York Times noted in an editorial yesterday that “the trip wasn’t all that we had hoped it would be”.
Source: Times of London via HotAir
The aforementioned NY Times had one of the more targeted attacks on the trip (surprise!):
It was also dispiriting that Mr. Obama agreed to allow China to limit his public appearances so markedly. Questions were not permitted at the so-called press conference with Mr. Hu, and his town hall meeting with future Chinese leaders in Shanghai not only had a Potemkin air, it was not even broadcast live in China. It’s obvious that the last thing Mr. Hu wanted was to get questions about issues like his brutal repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. That doesn’t explain Mr. Obama’s acquiescence in such restrictions.
Mr. Obama did not meet with Chinese liberals. In Shanghai, he spoke of the need for an uncensored Internet and universal rights for all people, including Chinese, and at the press conference he called for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. He delayed a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after the China summit and should schedule it soon.
Source: NY Times
American Thinker gives a detailed explanation on how important it was for Obama to secure a trade agreement with China:
President Obama went to Asia this month with great hopes that he could persuade the Chinese government to let its people buy more American products. He failed.
The Chinese government only lets its people buy about 25¢ of American products for each $1 the U.S. buys from them. They not only keep out American products through currency manipulations, but also through a wide variety of tariff and non-tariff barriers...
Balanced trade with Asia would lead to a huge boost in demand for American exports. The result would lead to investment in the American manufacturing sector which would pull the American economy out of the recession. Rising American income would lead to rising purchases by Americans for Asian products. Both America and Asia would grow together as each would buy more and more of the other's products.Source: American Thinker
Leslie H. Gelb - who is the president emeritus at the Council on Foreign Relations - explains how the trip could have been more effective:
If most Asia hands inside and outside the government had designed the Obama trip, here’s what they would have advised: Go beyond the usual and trite message of building mutual understanding and cooperation, and stop invoking the God of Multilateralism without spelling out America’s leadership role. Asia is now overflowing with multilateral organizations. Washington is a member of a few key ones, like Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Asian Development Bank. But that has little to do with other new and key groupings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, Uzbekistan, etc.) and ASEAN, the association of Southeast Asian nations. Asian nations are increasingly organizing themselves into these groups, and Washington hasn’t really figured out its role. Most Asian nations want that role to be a prominent one—in fact, the leadership position. They’re afraid of China, afraid that China won’t be as attentive to their concerns in the future as America was in the past. At the same time, they don’t want Washington to come into these groupings and cause problems with Beijing. They want Washington to figure out a leadership position constructed on the proven American ability to help solve common problems in the common interest. They want an America they remember, one that can get things done and doesn’t let problems fester.
Source: The Daily Beast ["Amateur Hour at the White House" by Leslie H. Gelb]
