Obama's suck-up to China isn't working

Posted By Daniel Blumenthal Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 8:36 PM Share

By Daniel Blumenthal

An end of the year meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki exemplifies all that is wrong with Obama's Asia policy. In a matter of weeks, China blew up the Copenhagen climate change talks and humiliated President Obama, executed a mentally ill Brit on drug possession charges, and sentenced Liu Xiabo, the human rights activist and political reformer to 11 years in prison.

And what does the Administration do? Call in the Japanese ambassador to, as the Washington Post put it, tell him in "blunt, if diplomatic, terms that the United States remains adamant about moving a Marine base from one part of Okinawa to another."  

Are we really willing to wreck one of our most successful alliances over a real estate dispute? Meanwhile, as Washington hyperventilates about Japan's coming entente with China, Prime Minister Hatayoma just concluded a successful visit to India. A deeper Tokyo-Delhi security cooperation pact is not exactly a kowtow to China.

The "kick Japan kiss China approach" is indicative of a larger Obama problem: the inability to distinguish friends from rivals. The administration has frozen sales to Taiwan. Reports out of India indicate that the Obama administration "has signaled its intent to abandon elements in its ties with New Delhi that could rile China, including a joint military drill in Arunachal and any further Indo-U.S. naval maneuvers involving Japan or more parties like Australia."  

Despite stiffing Obama on issues from human rights (he was supposed to be more effective than his predecessors with his quiet diplomacy -- that was the justification for dissing the Dalai Lama), Iran, and climate change, China not only gets a pass, but sits back and grins as Washington undercuts its friends.

As the New Year approaches, it is high time for a review of Asia policy. I suggest beginning with a simple set of questions: why has not a single weapons system been sold to Taiwan, why are we escalating a real estate dispute with Japan to ruinous levels, why is our free trade agreement with South Korea still frozen, and why are we rolling back our cooperation with India? If we are sacrificing pro-ally initiatives for the sake of better relations with China it is not working.

David Gray-Pool/Getty Images

EXPLORE:CENTRAL ASIA, CHINA, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
 

IEWGNEM

8:58 PM ET

December 31, 2009

bob

Your foreign policy tend to be constrained by how many options you have, and how many options you have tend to be based on how much national power you have. US still has a lot of military power, but unless Obama is ready to fight a war with China, the other power, economic power isn't exactly in America's favor right now, especially not with a couple of trillion in debt. (of course there are make belief powers like human rights or religion, it looks like the real deal but Obama shouldn't be surprised if it's no good in he real world)

There's saying in China: "weak nations do not have diplomacy", it was coined when discussing China's own foreign policy options back in the 70s, a time when China just began to realize its own propaganda portraying the west as a dark world of capitalist enslavement wasn't very useful to their foreign policy, the US would do well to realize that too.

 

GRANT

8:17 AM ET

January 1, 2010

To start I fail to see, at

To start I fail to see, at all, how important the execution or the imprisonment are. They don't do a thing to change anything. That Mr. Xiabo was going to be imprisoned was a given, the execution not so much but hardly surprising (and as a note most media outlets have had the restraint to say 'possibly has mental problems'). Is a president judged as having failed if two people, neither of whom was American or even that important, are harmed by an authoritarian government?
On India I have to remind people that the U.S rather desperately needs Pakistan's help if it wants to create a politically acceptable situation in Afghanistan. We are in a position of balancing the ally we want for the future and the ally we need now.
Finally on Taiwan, let's be blunt. Either Taiwan will continue to have de facto independence or it will reintegrate with China. If it has independence it will be because China is not attractive enough to convince the people to vote for reunification and because the United States can still project enough power to deter a forceful reunification. If it joins China it will be because China looked promising enough to convince them to join it or because the U.S could not stop China's military. Either way, weapon systems probably won't be that important in what happens.

 

RIGHT ON

11:58 PM ET

January 2, 2010

BLUMENTHAL IS RIGHT ON ALL

BLUMENTHAL IS RIGHT ON ALL FRONTS!!!! OBAMA IS KISSING ASS TO CHINA AND ESCALATES UNECESSARILY CHINA'S ROLE AS A PARTNER! IT IS DEFINITELY NOT BOTH SAM AND GRANT SHOW MYOPIC AND IGNORANCE IN THEIR COMMENTS. AS FAR AS TAIWAN GOES--THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE NOTHING TO INCREASE TAIWAN'S CONFIDENCE AND SECURITY WHILE BEING THREATENED BY CHINA. ANY ISSUE TO INTEGRATE WITH CHINA HAS TO DO WITH UNIFICATION--NOT REUNIFICATION BECAUSE TAIWAN WAS NEVER TRULY A PART OF CHINA--EVER! THE TAIWANESE WOULD NEVER CHOOSE TO JOIN WITH CHINA FREELY. OBAMA IS UNWILLING TO PROVIDE THE MILITARY ARMS TAIWAN NEEDS FOR ITS DEFENSE AND OFFER TAIWAN A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT THAT WOULD PROVIDE TAIWAN WITH NEW ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES AND A WAY OUT OF CHINA'S ECONOMIC STRANGLEHOLD IN ADDITION TO ITS MILITARY AND SOCIAL THREATS, GRANT YOU FAIL TO UNDERSTAND THE DYNAMICS IN ASIA WHICH BLUMENTHAL IS DEFINITELY KNOWLEDGEABLE. THAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH STUPID FEEL GOOD SHORT SIGHTED LIBERALS. KEEP THE ALLIANCE STRONG BETWEEN THE USA AND JAPAN, S KOREA, TAIWAN, AUSTRALIA, INDIA. THEY ARE DEMOCRACIES. TAIWAN SHOULD NOT BE SEEN AS AN OBSTACLE AS SEEN BY OBAMA IN ITS BLIND PURSUITS TO PARTNERSHIP WITH CHINA . THE CHINESE SEES OBAMA AND THE USA AS WEAK NOW! ALL SHOULD HAVE VOTED FOR MCCAIN!

 

HERMIT

2:44 AM ET

January 7, 2010

UGH! My EYES!

You may have some valid points but until you learn to hit the caps lock key I'm afraid those points will be lost on me.

 

RIGHT ON

12:00 AM ET

January 3, 2010

KEEP TAIWAN FREE AND INDEPENDENT

KEEP TAIWAN FREE AND INDEPENDENT!!!

 

TENNISONSHOP

2:56 AM ET

January 11, 2010

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Shadow Government is a blog about U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration, written by experienced policy makers from the loyal opposition and curated by Peter D. Feaver and William Inboden.

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