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Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Mrs. Hillary Clinton Reprioritizes US-China Relations
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming arrival in Beijing ironically confirms that the Strategic Economic Dialogue, long championed by Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson has taken a back seat.
Mrs. Hillary Clinton Reprioritizes US-China Relations
Thomas Wilkins 18 February 2009
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming arrival in Beijing ironically confirms that the Strategic Economic Dialogue, long championed by Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson has taken a back seat. It is ironic because the economic crisis has mushroomed. The reasons for this irony are due to the following reasons.
First, this is Secretary Clinton’s first foreign trip. Before leaving Washington on Sunday, she held a conference call with journalists and showed unambiguously that currency issues were not at the top of her agenda as in the old days of Henry Paulson’s Strategic Economic Dialogues. “I applaud China,” she said, “for what it is doing on the stimulus front.” In other words, it is the stimulus discussions worldwide, not the currency issue, which have moved to the top of her agenda as well as the agenda of the Clinton Administration and the G-7 meeting in Rome over the weekend.
While en route to her office released a transcript of her replies to question on board her plane. One question asked: “There’s been a lot of speculation about the fact that you are trying to claim turf that belonged to the Treasury under the previous administration, and so on, when it comes to China. How are you going to handle the problem in terms of responsibilities and sharing the burden with Secretary Geithner?”
She has clearly defined her mission as broader than an economic dialogue, when she replied: “I have had a long conversation with Secretary Geithner. We believe that we have to have a comprehensive approach to our dialogues with China, which we did have, but they were divided between the Strategic Economic Dialogue and the Senior Dialogues. And we want a more comprehensive, unified approach to the discussions that we will be engaged in with the Chinese.” She also said that “human rights is part of our agenda with the Chinese, as is climate change and clean energy and nuclear non-proliferation and dealing with the North Korean denuclearization challenge and the Six-Party talks. We have a range of issues, as I just said, with respect to the economic crisis. And that’s why we want a comprehensive dialogue.”
While in China, she plans to take part in a town hall meeting in Beijing, will address human rights issues and visit a clean thermal power plant, a joint venture between General Electric and the Chinese.
To demonstrate the linkage between clean energy, and the stimulus plans of President Obama, and Mrs. Clinton’s agenda in China, it is interesting to note General Electric public support for the Obama stimulus package, when it said prior to the passage in Congress of the stimulus package: “Wind power today is a mainstream fuel and, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), it represents 42 percent of all new electricity that was added to the grid in 2008. In the last three years, AWEA calculates that the wind industry has installed more than 16,000 megawatts—enough energy to power nearly four million homes. In order to sustain the industry’s current growth, Congress needs to pass a stimulus bill which provides an extension to the production tax credit for wind. Swift passage of the stimulus package is vital to sustain the economic health of America’s renewable industry and the thousands of jobs that it supports.”
These comments about the stimulus plan are completely different from the advance comments before one of Secretary Henry Paulson’s trips to China. These comments also support the logical deduction that US Treasury Secretary Geithner will not be the top interface with China, but Mrs. Clinton will have that position.
Secondly, Mrs. Clinton’s trip is significant because it follows after her first major speech as Secretary of State. She did not speak on the Middle East or Mexican border issues or the Bush missile plans for Europe. But she spoke on Asia to an invitation-only gathering at the Asia Society in New York on Friday. In her remarks, entitled “U.S. and Asia: Two Transatlantic and Transpacific Powers,” can be seen on a webcast at www.asiasociety.org. She emphasized the importance of the Obama stimulus package. She did not even mention exchange rates in her talk. Since a rising Chinese currency hurts exports, she is showing empathy for those hurt in China when she said: “A Chinese Government survey of villages last week reported that 20 million of the nation’s 130 million migrant workers are unemployed.” This is part of her knockout punch that the financial crisis is deep and global. It is in the US, as well as China and Indonesia. Hence, this reverberates one of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign slogans: “It’s the economy stupid.” She is focusing on what can be done to overcome the effects of the financial crisis worldwide. This is her “comprehensive approach.”
Thirdly, she is not travelling with President Obama’s choice for the US Trade Representative, whom Congress has not yet confirmed. But to dramatize her style she is travelling with Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, a lawyer, who will be the administration’s chief climate negotiator. It is not currency that is important now, but transforming the global economy from a high carbon addict to alternative energy. Stern was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. This think tank says it draws its inspiration from Martin Luther King, among other US leaders, and is an advocate for alternative energy. Todd Stern was in the White House under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998 and was the chief negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires climate meetings.
Fourthly, her itinerary is much broader than trips by Secretary Paulson.
Currency re-evaluation has definitely been reduced in importance. “It’s the economy stupid!” Over the weekend, at the G-7 meeting in Rome, US Secretary of Treasury Geithner praised Beijing for “playing a very important stabilizing role in the international financial system today.” This is a long way from his calling China a “currency manipulator,” during his US Congressional nomination as US Secretary of the Treasury.
The worldwide economic slowdown pushes worldwide rescue packages to the forefront of the official agenda and reduces the spotlight focus on China’s exchange rates. Since exchange rates were so important to the Paulson agenda, the Strategic Economic Dialogues have a lower priority. Clinton’s interfacing with China will be broader and less focused. Secretary Geithner will have his hands full dealing with the economic stimulus plan and the rescue of mortgages and banks.
Mrs. Clinton will have to find sufficient common ground to forge a new alliance that is dramatically different from Mr. Paulson’s emphasis on economics and exchange rates. She has an advantage over Mr. Obama’s search for bipartisan support for his stimulus package. One reason to support the hypothesis that she has a good chance of finding “bipartisan” support with the Chinese is that she has expanded the topics that are in her interface model. It should be easier to find overlapping interests now that she has enlarged the conference table with multiple topics and interests. One conclusion is for certain. The Strategic Economic Dialogue, circa Henry Paulson, will take a back seat to Mrs. Clinton’s expanded interfacing agenda. She has the brains to make the new dialogues more powerful and more overlapping than a focused economic dialogue.
1 comment:
Mrs. Hillary Clinton Reprioritizes US-China Relations
Thomas Wilkins
18 February 2009
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming arrival in Beijing ironically confirms that the Strategic Economic Dialogue, long championed by Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson has taken a back seat. It is ironic because the economic crisis has mushroomed. The reasons for this irony are due to the following reasons.
First, this is Secretary Clinton’s first foreign trip. Before leaving Washington on Sunday, she held a conference call with journalists and showed unambiguously that currency issues were not at the top of her agenda as in the old days of Henry Paulson’s Strategic Economic Dialogues. “I applaud China,” she said, “for what it is doing on the stimulus front.” In other words, it is the stimulus discussions worldwide, not the currency issue, which have moved to the top of her agenda as well as the agenda of the Clinton Administration and the G-7 meeting in Rome over the weekend.
While en route to her office released a transcript of her replies to question on board her plane. One question asked: “There’s been a lot of speculation about the fact that you are trying to claim turf that belonged to the Treasury under the previous administration, and so on, when it comes to China. How are you going to handle the problem in terms of responsibilities and sharing the burden with Secretary Geithner?”
She has clearly defined her mission as broader than an economic dialogue, when she replied: “I have had a long conversation with Secretary Geithner. We believe that we have to have a comprehensive approach to our dialogues with China, which we did have, but they were divided between the Strategic Economic Dialogue and the Senior Dialogues. And we want a more comprehensive, unified approach to the discussions that we will be engaged in with the Chinese.” She also said that “human rights is part of our agenda with the Chinese, as is climate change and clean energy and nuclear non-proliferation and dealing with the North Korean denuclearization challenge and the Six-Party talks. We have a range of issues, as I just said, with respect to the economic crisis. And that’s why we want a comprehensive dialogue.”
While in China, she plans to take part in a town hall meeting in Beijing, will address human rights issues and visit a clean thermal power plant, a joint venture between General Electric and the Chinese.
To demonstrate the linkage between clean energy, and the stimulus plans of President Obama, and Mrs. Clinton’s agenda in China, it is interesting to note General Electric public support for the Obama stimulus package, when it said prior to the passage in Congress of the stimulus package: “Wind power today is a mainstream fuel and, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), it represents 42 percent of all new electricity that was added to the grid in 2008. In the last three years, AWEA calculates that the wind industry has installed more than 16,000 megawatts—enough energy to power nearly four million homes. In order to sustain the industry’s current growth, Congress needs to pass a stimulus bill which provides an extension to the production tax credit for wind. Swift passage of the stimulus package is vital to sustain the economic health of America’s renewable industry and the thousands of jobs that it supports.”
These comments about the stimulus plan are completely different from the advance comments before one of Secretary Henry Paulson’s trips to China. These comments also support the logical deduction that US Treasury Secretary Geithner will not be the top interface with China, but Mrs. Clinton will have that position.
Secondly, Mrs. Clinton’s trip is significant because it follows after her first major speech as Secretary of State. She did not speak on the Middle East or Mexican border issues or the Bush missile plans for Europe. But she spoke on Asia to an invitation-only gathering at the Asia Society in New York on Friday. In her remarks, entitled “U.S. and Asia: Two Transatlantic and Transpacific Powers,” can be seen on a webcast at www.asiasociety.org. She emphasized the importance of the Obama stimulus package. She did not even mention exchange rates in her talk. Since a rising Chinese currency hurts exports, she is showing empathy for those hurt in China when she said: “A Chinese Government survey of villages last week reported that 20 million of the nation’s 130 million migrant workers are unemployed.” This is part of her knockout punch that the financial crisis is deep and global. It is in the US, as well as China and Indonesia. Hence, this reverberates one of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign slogans: “It’s the economy stupid.” She is focusing on what can be done to overcome the effects of the financial crisis worldwide. This is her “comprehensive approach.”
Thirdly, she is not travelling with President Obama’s choice for the US Trade Representative, whom Congress has not yet confirmed. But to dramatize her style she is travelling with Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, a lawyer, who will be the administration’s chief climate negotiator. It is not currency that is important now, but transforming the global economy from a high carbon addict to alternative energy. Stern was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. This think tank says it draws its inspiration from Martin Luther King, among other US leaders, and is an advocate for alternative energy. Todd Stern was in the White House under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998 and was the chief negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires climate meetings.
Fourthly, her itinerary is much broader than trips by Secretary Paulson.
Currency re-evaluation has definitely been reduced in importance. “It’s the economy stupid!” Over the weekend, at the G-7 meeting in Rome, US Secretary of Treasury Geithner praised Beijing for “playing a very important stabilizing role in the international financial system today.” This is a long way from his calling China a “currency manipulator,” during his US Congressional nomination as US Secretary of the Treasury.
The worldwide economic slowdown pushes worldwide rescue packages to the forefront of the official agenda and reduces the spotlight focus on China’s exchange rates. Since exchange rates were so important to the Paulson agenda, the Strategic Economic Dialogues have a lower priority. Clinton’s interfacing with China will be broader and less focused. Secretary Geithner will have his hands full dealing with the economic stimulus plan and the rescue of mortgages and banks.
Mrs. Clinton will have to find sufficient common ground to forge a new alliance that is dramatically different from Mr. Paulson’s emphasis on economics and exchange rates. She has an advantage over Mr. Obama’s search for bipartisan support for his stimulus package. One reason to support the hypothesis that she has a good chance of finding “bipartisan” support with the Chinese is that she has expanded the topics that are in her interface model. It should be easier to find overlapping interests now that she has enlarged the conference table with multiple topics and interests. One conclusion is for certain. The Strategic Economic Dialogue, circa Henry Paulson, will take a back seat to Mrs. Clinton’s expanded interfacing agenda. She has the brains to make the new dialogues more powerful and more overlapping than a focused economic dialogue.
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