Entries from Pomfret's China tagged with 'United States'
China Is Officially a Superpower, or Not
Are you a superpower when Timothy Garton Ash says so? The award-winning writer has a grand piece in the Guardian today in which he states:
Today - 2 April 2009 - may yet be marked as the day on which, through the catalysis of a global economic crisis, China definitively emerged as a 21st-century world power.
Not so fast.
Obama and Hu, a U.S.-China Luvfest
Niall Ferguson coined the term "Chimerica" to describe the close and often bizarre co-dependence of the United States on China and vice versa over the past decade. Americans were China's consumer of choice, gobbling up hundreds of billions in Chinese-made stuff. China was our ATM, lending us hundreds of billions of dollars. It was fun while it lasted.
But "Chimerica" is still alive. The US and China are positioning themselves as the twin saviors of the world's economy. Just witness today's luvfest between President Obama and China's Communist Party boss Hu Jintao. Obama announced he would travel to Beijing next year to, according to the White House, "intensify coordination and cooperation on global economic and financial issues." Doesn't seem like any troublesome issues were mentioned. No mention of their squabbles over the Chinese yuan, China's recent assault on the dollar as the world's dominant currency or even the ugly stand-off between US and Chinese naval vessels a few weeks back.
China's Far Too Rosy Self Image
For decades the rest of the world has derided Americans for being ignorant about lots of things. Not least on that list has been our ignorance of how we affect the world. We think the world loves us, our critics say, but it doesn't. But now, the United States seems to have found a rival in the race to be the most insensitive country on earth. China!
More on Hillary, "Freebies", and US-China policy
Long-time US diplomat Hank Levine disagrees with my criticism of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent announcement that the US plans to downplay human rights with China. In a post on his new blog Levine takes me to task for disagreeing with Clinton's move to state publicly that the US will not aggressively defend human rights in China and that there are other more important things; the global economic crisis and global warming to name but two.
Hillary, Human Rights and Tibet
When Hillary Clinton downplayed human rights as part of the U.S. agenda in dealing with Beijing during her visit to Asia last month, I was of two minds.
I understood editorials such as the one that ran in The Post blasting her for her statements. But I also empathized with the secretary because of the automaton-like quality of our interactions with Beijing over issues such as Tibet, Taiwan and, more broadly, human rights.
As she said: "We know what they are going to say because I've had those kinds of conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders."
Ultimately, I came to this wishy-washy conclusion: if you're going to tweak your human rights policy with China, you probably want to do it quietly. Unconfirmed reports this week that China is engaged in a human rights crackdown have, if anything, reinforced my belief that Clinton's public diplomacy last month was at best premature. Here's why.
Why You Might Want to Be a Little Worried About China's Bad Milk
Should Americans be learning something from the Chinese tainted-milk scandal? Should we be worried? Concerned? A little queasy?
You might say, "Not a problem, it's happening on the other side of the globe." Of course the story so far -- four dead infants, 60,000 sick, and the bureaucratic fallout just beginning -- is pretty grim. Asia is worried: Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, Burundi and the Philippines are all either testing Chinese dairy products or pulling them from their stores. Kids have been stricken with kidney stones in Hong Kong.
But the FDA has said we don't import China's milk products. So don't worry.
I disagree. If the scandal illustrates anything, it's that China's product safety system is woefully ill-equipped. And that's pretty sobering news from a country which is the second biggest supplier of goods to the United States.
Is China Really Working?
Wow. Thanks to all of you who took the time to write. I hope I can keep up with you in the coming months!
One question I had reading the comments is this: Has China succeeded in creating an alternative model to that of Western liberal democracy? Does China’s amalgam of 19th century capitalism and 20th century one-party government represent a significant systemic challenge to the United States and its buddies in Western Europe? Simply put, is China succeeding where the Soviets failed?
One of the responses got me thinking about this. It came from Alec Lin, who described himself as a participant in the student-led demonstrations in 1989 that led to the bloody crackdown on June 4th around Tiananmen Square.
Lin’s posting captured for me an extremely important point about Chinese today that often goes unnoticed in the West. Basically, many Chinese are fed-up with hectoring from the Westerners.
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