President Obama's Trip to China Shows Just Who Has the Upper Hand
Obama's outreach here continued the type of pragmatic bridge-building he has used in Europe and the Middle East in hopes of earning goodwill that will produce payoffs down the road.
In China, though, the challenge is of a different magnitude. The Chinese government is one of America's biggest foreign creditors, with $800 billion of federal U.S. debt that gives it extraordinary power in the relationship. Its military buildup is rubbing up against America's influence in Asia. And Beijing feels the global recession, sparked by U.S. financial industry excesses, vindicates its authoritarian leadership."-Associated Press line.
What was troubling about President Obamas trip to China was that while many other Presidents show up and are greeted with the release of a dissident or a trade concession as a show of gratitude and a way to "break the ice", so to speak, Obama walked away with neither. In fact, just recently, China has talked of boycotting foreign made vehicles (which in China means American) because of Americas use of trade embargo's against Chinese pipe. Of course those at the steel mill celebrated this and were happy China wasn't "dumping" pipe onto our shores, but how much business is actually gained if whole countries don't buy our cars (not that I blame them in this instance)? Just another instance where free trade is shown to prevail, and another instance where our embargo's will ultimately hurt ourselves more than China. But regardless, the point of this isn't about free trade, but about our relations with China.
Of course I'm not strictly blaming this all on Obama. Trade protectionism has become far too common in our country, and he's just following suite.
However, a quote from Xue Chen, a researcher on strategic affairs at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, sums up the trip fairly well: "The U.S. has a lot to ask from China...on the other hand, the U.S. has little to offer China." Naturally Chinese people were enthused by Obama's pragmatism, as many in America also are, and just as naturally the Chinese government censored a nationwide broadcast and censored Web transcripts of a town hall-style meeting he held with Chinese students in Shanghai.
China is yet another reason why America needs to pull it's collective head out of it's arse and start back down the path of economic growth. Chinese leaders aren't stupid, and they see that they are beginning to emerge as the new super power. We send the most popular President in over a decade over to China, and what do we receive? No concessions on trade, no straight answers on anything (especially global emissions standards, kudos to China on that one), and if we were lucky a t-shirt reading "I went to China and all I got was this t-shirt and lead poisoning." Let me reiterate my statement above: this isn't Obamas fault, my friends. It wouldn't have mattered if that was McCain or Palin or Huckabee or Paul or Romney or Bush or Reagan over there right now. They are holding pocket aces, and we have seven three off suite, and our hands are both showing right now. We can't bluff it. We have to make some serious economic changes and beat them at the money game. Period.
