Obama Returns Empty-handed

In Beijing, Obama described the relationship between the United States and China as more important than ever to the future of both nations. At a joint press conference with China’s President Hu Jintao, he heaped praise on China’s economic successes and then cautiously brought up the subject of a possible reevaluation of the Chinese currency, since Washington wants to avoid alienating America’s bankers. Obama also showed considerable dexterity in addressing the question of Tibet, obligatory for all visiting Western visitors; Obama suggested direct talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. At the same time, however, he emphasized that Tibet was an integral part of the People’s Republic, something especially well-received by his hosts.

The Chinese leadership reacted more with boredom than irritation as Obama beat the drum for freedom of the press and, selectively, in favor of human rights, if not of social rights. The week prior to Obama’s journey, an article entitled “The End Of Whose History?” appeared in the New York Times, in which Professor Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore’s National University reminded everyone that, as far as human rights were concerned, the U.S. had long since lost whatever credibility it had in Asia. The Western elites, he wrote, however, still appeared incapable of recognizing “what a shock Guantanamo unleashed around the world.”

Mahbubani wrote that Francis Fukuyama’s theory, on which his thesis, “The End of History”, was based, proceeded from the assumption that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West would become “a shining beacon for democracy and human rights.” No one could have imagined in 1989, that over the coming 15 years, the West’s leading “shining beacon” would reintroduce torture as an interrogation device. As a result, Asian nations now react with puzzled disbelief when intellectuals and government representatives from Western nations presume to lecture other countries about human rights, when “they can point to nothing in themselves or their own countries as significant examples.” Which is exactly what Obama did during his visit to China this week. Small wonder, then, that one of his audience, a young student from Shanghai, remarked to one of Germany’s ARD television reporters that Obama wouldn’t be measured by his pretty words, but rather by his future deeds.

In addition, “The wheel of Westernization has been turned back,” Professor Mahbubani asserted, not least by the fact that Western neo-liberal market radicals have proven to be increasingly incompetent, as evidenced by their inability to solve pressing social and economic problems at home. He says it’s precisely because Beijing rejected such market radicalism and took charge of the nation’s economy that it has succeeded in attaining economic superpower status equal to the of the U.S. within just two decades, while crisis-ridden America now stands before the wreckage of what was once its greatness.

On Tuesday, the New York Times commented that “to solve a whole array of extremely difficult problems, including stabilization of the global financial system,” Obama would urgently need China’s help. That’s why he had to “encourage Peking to play a more prominent international role.” At the same time, the newspaper insisted China had to curtail its “darker instincts, including the mistreatment of its own citizens and the support for distasteful governments like Sudan,” thereby bearing witness to an unreformed American hubris.

Obama did, in fact, address many possibilities for increased cooperation, from the economy to climate change and on to improved military relations. The American wish list regarding security policy, which was the centerpiece of American media coverage, was lengthy; China was asked to help prevent North Korea from its development of nuclear weapons. Regarding Iran, China was asked to change its position to the one shared by the U.S. and Israel of increased sanctions. In Sudan, China is supposed to “finally act responsibly” and subordinate its own oil interests to those of the U.S. China should also grant increased economic aid to Pakistan so that Pakistani troops might better support the U.S. military by increasing their attacks on the Taliban. And so it goes.

Obama’s much publicized request to China, as a leading world economic power, to take on more responsibility, therefore, isn’t as much an expression of America’s recognition of China as an equal partner as it is reflective of America’s attempt to make China an enabler of U.S. policy goals. Small wonder that Obama was unable to bring anything more concrete home from China.