Obama: “Brave” on Foreign Diplomacy, but “Without a Plan” on Domestic Policy
On Nov. 2, 2010, the United States will hold its midterm elections. This midterm election will not only elect the representatives of the 112th Congress; many states’ governors, state legislature representatives, mayors and city council members will also emerge on Nov 2. The voters of all of America’s 50 states and the District of Columbia will exercise their democratic right.
President Obama, ordained while the country was on the edge of calamity, is not as fortunate as Roosevelt was in his day; he has not been able to expediently turn around the domestic economic predicament. Since Obama’s first year in office, the U.S. economy has shown almost no improvement — especially the unrelentingly high unemployment rate, which has damaged the good reputation of his power.
On Oct. 25, the last opinion poll before the U.S. midterm elections get underway showed that independents who support the Republican Party outnumber independent Democratic Party supporters by 14 percent. American media has largely predicted that the Republican Party will take back power in the House, while the Democratic Party will retain control of the Senate. If this occurs, then it will create a “divided” government in Washington, and Obama will become a “lame duck” president.
However, although Obama is subject to intense checks and balances by the opposition faction in Congress, this may not necessarily affect his international politics. In 1994, after the U.S. Democratic Party lost control of Congress, Democratic President Clinton turned to put his effort into foreign diplomacy, successfully mediating the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, aiding in the settlement of the conflict on the Balkan Peninsula and leading the expansion of NATO.
Things aren’t as they used to be; Obama’s current unfavorable situation cannot be compared to Clinton’s back then. Under Clinton, America’s economy was at its pinnacle, whereas in Obama’s time, the U.S. economy is only in slow recovery.
However, Obama’s achievements in foreign diplomacy are laudable. Over a year and a half after taking office, one of Obama’s main achievements in foreign diplomacy is the newly signed U.S.-Russia nuclear disarmament treaty. In U.S.-Russia negotiations over guided missile defense systems, by no means did the U.S. make any substantial concessions; yet, it still succeeded in reaching an agreement. Obama’s withdrawal of peacekeeping troops from Iraq has yet to bring about a security crisis in the country; he has adopted a comprehensive, tough policy toward Iran; and he also reopened direct peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Not long after, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was even invited to, and starting next year will participate in, the 18-country East Asia Summit.
Obama’s “most brilliant” stroke of foreign diplomacy was his successful shift in political, economic and military strategy toward the Asia-Pacific region. Back when African-descended Obama was elected president of the United States, all of China’s domestic mass media was full of excitement in its unbridled embellishment of Obama’s China complex, even citing his brother’s doing business in China as an example.
This year, Obama also kept a firm grip on the sinking of South Korea’s “Cheonan” submarine and on the opportunity presented by the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Diaoyu Islands. He conducted unified multilateral military exercises in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, with the purpose of surrounding China and intimidating North Korea. The scale of the military might he utilized, which reached a tough and menacing degree, surpasses by far that used in the days of post-Vietnam War era Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush.
Obama is a multiracial mulatto whose biological father was a black Muslim from African Kenya and whose mother, Ann Dunham, was an American from the state of Kansas; Obama himself is a devout Christian. Obama was formerly a “street bully” — during his high school years in Hawaii, he played hooky all day, sowing his wild oats. He said, “In middle school I was every teacher’s nightmare; no one knew what to do with me.”*
Today, Obama, this crystallization of Eastern and Western culture, appears aggressive once again as in his youth — this time in international affairs, as he “stands off” with the ardently peaceful Chinese people. In the end he will inevitably regret it, just as he probably regrets sowing his wild oats when he was younger!
The senior director of Asian affairs for the U.S. White House National Security Council, Jeffery Bader, announced at a White House briefing on Oct. 28 that Obama will attend the Nov. 11 G-20 Summit in South Korea, where he will hold a meeting with China’s Premier Hu Jintao and that Premier Hu would make an official visit to the U.S. in February 2011.
From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, disputes between China and the U.S. have arisen over numerous issues, including the exchange rate of the Renminbi, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Obama’s meeting in February of this year with Tibet’s Dali Lama and multiple issues in the South China Sea. Only through candid dialogue on the premise of mutual, reciprocal benefit for China and the U.S. can we find a way to solve these issues. Only in this way will Obama avoid turning into the nightmare of the Asian people!
Liu Yanqing, Changzhou, Jiangsu Province
*Editor’s note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.
President Obama, ordained while the country was on the edge of calamity, is not as fortunate as Roosevelt was in his day; he has not been able to expediently turn around the domestic economic predicament. Since Obama’s first year in office, the U.S. economy has shown almost no improvement — especially the unrelentingly high unemployment rate, which has damaged the good reputation of his power.
On Oct. 25, the last opinion poll before the U.S. midterm elections get underway showed that independents who support the Republican Party outnumber independent Democratic Party supporters by 14 percent. American media has largely predicted that the Republican Party will take back power in the House, while the Democratic Party will retain control of the Senate. If this occurs, then it will create a “divided” government in Washington, and Obama will become a “lame duck” president.
However, although Obama is subject to intense checks and balances by the opposition faction in Congress, this may not necessarily affect his international politics. In 1994, after the U.S. Democratic Party lost control of Congress, Democratic President Clinton turned to put his effort into foreign diplomacy, successfully mediating the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, aiding in the settlement of the conflict on the Balkan Peninsula and leading the expansion of NATO.
Things aren’t as they used to be; Obama’s current unfavorable situation cannot be compared to Clinton’s back then. Under Clinton, America’s economy was at its pinnacle, whereas in Obama’s time, the U.S. economy is only in slow recovery.
However, Obama’s achievements in foreign diplomacy are laudable. Over a year and a half after taking office, one of Obama’s main achievements in foreign diplomacy is the newly signed U.S.-Russia nuclear disarmament treaty. In U.S.-Russia negotiations over guided missile defense systems, by no means did the U.S. make any substantial concessions; yet, it still succeeded in reaching an agreement. Obama’s withdrawal of peacekeeping troops from Iraq has yet to bring about a security crisis in the country; he has adopted a comprehensive, tough policy toward Iran; and he also reopened direct peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Not long after, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was even invited to, and starting next year will participate in, the 18-country East Asia Summit.
Obama’s “most brilliant” stroke of foreign diplomacy was his successful shift in political, economic and military strategy toward the Asia-Pacific region. Back when African-descended Obama was elected president of the United States, all of China’s domestic mass media was full of excitement in its unbridled embellishment of Obama’s China complex, even citing his brother’s doing business in China as an example.
This year, Obama also kept a firm grip on the sinking of South Korea’s “Cheonan” submarine and on the opportunity presented by the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Diaoyu Islands. He conducted unified multilateral military exercises in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, with the purpose of surrounding China and intimidating North Korea. The scale of the military might he utilized, which reached a tough and menacing degree, surpasses by far that used in the days of post-Vietnam War era Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush.
Obama is a multiracial mulatto whose biological father was a black Muslim from African Kenya and whose mother, Ann Dunham, was an American from the state of Kansas; Obama himself is a devout Christian. Obama was formerly a “street bully” — during his high school years in Hawaii, he played hooky all day, sowing his wild oats. He said, “In middle school I was every teacher’s nightmare; no one knew what to do with me.”*
Today, Obama, this crystallization of Eastern and Western culture, appears aggressive once again as in his youth — this time in international affairs, as he “stands off” with the ardently peaceful Chinese people. In the end he will inevitably regret it, just as he probably regrets sowing his wild oats when he was younger!
The senior director of Asian affairs for the U.S. White House National Security Council, Jeffery Bader, announced at a White House briefing on Oct. 28 that Obama will attend the Nov. 11 G-20 Summit in South Korea, where he will hold a meeting with China’s Premier Hu Jintao and that Premier Hu would make an official visit to the U.S. in February 2011.
From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, disputes between China and the U.S. have arisen over numerous issues, including the exchange rate of the Renminbi, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Obama’s meeting in February of this year with Tibet’s Dali Lama and multiple issues in the South China Sea. Only through candid dialogue on the premise of mutual, reciprocal benefit for China and the U.S. can we find a way to solve these issues. Only in this way will Obama avoid turning into the nightmare of the Asian people!
Liu Yanqing, Changzhou, Jiangsu Province
*Editor’s note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.
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