A Few Words in Fairness for the Soon-to-Be Former President Obama

Published in Huanqiu
(China) on 11 January 2017
by (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Jake Eberts. Edited by Helaine Schweitzer.
Barack Obama gave his farewell address this Wednesday Beijing time, providing the world with his most comprehensive and well-received commentary on his term in office. Obama’s heavy “self-praise” is certainly understandable under the American system.

The majority of the achievements Obama listed are highly controversial. That America’s economic performance is better than other major Western countries is the only achievement that can be proven by solid data. American gross domestic product per capita has risen, the unemployment rate has dropped, and the stock market has undergone one of its longest bull markets in history.

However, the income gap in America continues to grow as the economy turns around, and the people’s sense of gain is low. There is much discussion in the middle class of the “sinking” of its status, and because people did not clearly perceive their situation, Trump was given the opportunity to win the election.

Of the things Obama considers a part of his political legacy, such as health care reform, the majority of those accomplishments are at risk of being discarded under Trump’s administration. It’s possible that in the end, Obama will leave nothing behind, with those succeeding him scrubbing clean any mark of his time in office.

When someone leaves their post, the Chinese are accustomed to saying a few kind words about that person. If we can give such treatment to someone, we can still find a few strengths demonstrated by the outgoing American president.

First of all, Obama worked hard. In eight years, his hair has turned grey. He devoted his all to domestic health care reform, but there were impasses as well. For instance, gun control was not something he could achieve; we can only say that he gave the issue his great effort.

On the foreign policy front, he was subjected to significant controversy. But overall, he was not as brash as George W. Bush, especially as he was much more cautious about pulling the trigger. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize was incredibly questionable, but he was the most peaceful of all the recent American presidents; his term saw no new wars. America did partake in the military assault on Libya’s Gaddafi, but that was not really spearheaded by Washington.

Obama was there for the “Arab Spring” in its entirety, wherein it could be said that his performance always angered one person or another. Regarding the conflict in Syria, the White House provided a solution to the thorny reality of the situation on the ground, dragging out the Syrian civil war for six years, allowing the rise of the Islamic State and a flood of refugees. Today Washington’s control in the Middle East is all the more weak. Obama’s Middle East policies should be seen as a failure.

Obama’s pivot to Asia strategy is commonly seen as unsuccessful. The problem in the South China Seas has aggravated mutual suspicion between the U.S. and China, and in the end, American influence in the South China Seas region has also fallen.

Yet, Obama’s tactics in pushing the pivot to Asia were not at all extremist, and thus, he avoided the emergence of a more terrible situation in Sino-American relations over the South China Sea. American and Chinese leaders met with historically high frequency over the whole of the Obama administration, and the institutionalization of mechanisms for Chinese-American intercourse and interaction has shown progress. As the relations between the two great powers grow more complex, they are also becoming more familiar. It is tenable to appraise relations now as having taken another step forward in development.

At the very least, there are four major areas of foreign relations that worsened while Obama was in office, namely, American relations with the Saudis, Turkey, the Philippines and Russia.

The undulation of Russo-American relations does not completely adhere to logic. Relations over the last eight years were at first warm but are now cool, with Obama at first warmly resetting the relationship, and now having completely fallen out with Putin. Yet Trump has suggested a new inclination to reignite the process for a Russian and American friendship. In other words, between Russia and America there are issues Obama considers irreconcilable which Trump does not see as particularly important. So will such a situation arise between America and other countries as well?

In general, Obama seems to be a pretty great person, having appeared more moderate and less extreme compared to George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He was the president everyone more or less expected. Although he did not display any particular leadership ability, he was not like the trigger-finger Bush who rushed toward calamity.

After Obama, someone completely different and previously obsessed with the spotlight will enter the White House. Whatever Trump does, each man will be the measure against which the other is compared.


奥巴马北京时间星期三发表告别演说,他给出了一份这8年来全世界关于他执政最全面,也评价最高的一份成绩单。在美国的体制下,奥巴马这样大搞“自我表扬”,也算可以理解吧。
  奥巴马所列出的大部分成就充满争议,只有美国经济的表现比西方其他主要国家好,有数据可以佐证。美国的人均GDP增加了,失业率降低了,美国股市也经历了史上最长的牛市之一。
  不过,经济好转的同时,美国的收入分配差距继续拉大,民众的获得感很低,中产阶级关于自己“阶层下沉”的议论很多。正因为民众总的感受不好,特朗普才有了机会,赢得了大选。
被奥巴马视为自己“政治遗产”的那些东西,比如医保改革等,大多面临特朗普将废弃它们的威胁。最后奥巴马有可能“什么都留不下”,他的执政痕迹被后来人抹得干干净净。
  中国人的习惯是,一个人离任时,对他多说几句好话。如果把这个待遇也送给奥巴马,那么我们还是能找出这位美国总统身上一些优点的。
  首先,奥巴马做得很努力,8年时间里头发都花白了。他致力于医保等国内政策的改革,但是掣肘很多,比如控枪不是他想做就能做成的,只能说他尽力了。
  他在外交领域的表现饱受争议。但总体看,他没小布什那么张扬,尤其在动武问题上比较谨慎。他得诺贝尔和平奖过于夸张突兀,但他是最近几任“最和平”的美国总统,他的任内没有发动或领导新的战争。美国参与了对利比亚卡扎菲政权的军事打击,但那一次华盛顿不算是领头的。
  奥巴马经历了“阿拉伯之春”全过程,那段时间他的表现可以说“里外不是人”,在叙利亚问题上,白宫给出了与实际局势顶牛的解决方案,使得叙内战一拖近6年,IS崛起,还出了难民潮。如今华盛顿对中东的掌控力更弱了,奥巴马的中东政策应当说是失败的。
  奥巴马的“亚太再平衡”战略被普遍认为不成功。南海问题加剧了美中战略互疑,到头来美国在南海地区的影响力也下降了。
  不过,奥巴马推行“亚太再平衡”的手段算不上激进,这避免了中美关系因南海问题出现最糟糕的情况。整个奥巴马执政期间,中美领导人见面的频率是历史上最高的,中美交流的机制性建设也有进展,这两个大国的关系在变得更加复杂的同时也更显成熟了。如果做一个中美关系得到进一步发展的总评价,应当说是站得住脚的。
  至少有四组重要关系,到奥巴马离开时比他上任时变糟糕了,它们分别是美国同沙特、土耳其、菲律宾的关系和同俄罗斯的关系。
  美俄关系的起伏并不完全符合逻辑,它在这8年里先热后凉,一开始是奥巴马热衷重启美俄关系,直到他执政后期同普京完全撕破脸,而特朗普又摆出要同俄罗斯另起炉灶交朋友的新倾向。也就是说,美俄之间有一些奥巴马认为不可调和,而特朗普认为并不太重要的分歧。那么美同其他国家之间是否也会出现这种情况呢?
  奥巴马看来是通常意义上“挺不错”的一个人,和小布什、克林顿比起来,他都显得更温和、不极端。他是一个与大家预期和想象“差不多”的美国总统。他既未显示特殊的领导力,也不像小布什那样动辄发动战争,闯下大祸。  
  奥巴马之后,一个什么都要与别人不一样、过去就对出风头十分痴迷的人将走进白宫。特朗普干得怎么样,他和奥巴马将是互相衡量对方的尺子。
This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article with the above link .

Hot this week

Pakistan: Trump’s Gaza Blueprint Unfolds

Germany: The Tariffs Have Side Effects — For the US Too*

Austria: The EU Must Recognize That a Tariff Deal with Trump Is Hardly Worth Anything

Peru: Blockade ‘For Now’

Topics

Peru: Blockade ‘For Now’

Japan: US President and the Federal Reserve Board: Harmonious Dialogue To Support the Dollar

Austria: The EU Must Recognize That a Tariff Deal with Trump Is Hardly Worth Anything

Mexico: The Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Venezuela and President Nicholás Maduro

Hong Kong: Cordial Cross-Strait Relations Will Spare Taiwan Trump’s Demands, Says Paul Kuoboug Chang

Germany: The Tariffs Have Side Effects — For the US Too*

Ireland: We Must Stand Up to Trump on Climate. The Alternative Is Too Bleak To Contemplate

Canada: Carney Takes Us Backward with Americans on Trade

Related Articles

Peru: Blockade ‘For Now’

Japan: US President and the Federal Reserve Board: Harmonious Dialogue To Support the Dollar

Germany: The Tariffs Have Side Effects — For the US Too*

Ireland: We Must Stand Up to Trump on Climate. The Alternative Is Too Bleak To Contemplate

Canada: Carney Takes Us Backward with Americans on Trade