Potomac Correspondence: The Secret Room Bouts in Washington

On Jan. 19, the gun salute at the welcoming ceremony, ripped through by cold weather, opened the America-China leadership summit. There are differing opinions, but at last night’s informal dinner meeting I think most of the outcomes have been decided.

There is nothing more dreadful than a meeting at which no memos are given. Only occasionally do things come up that abuse the host country to its face and cause a loss of honor, and yet this sort of thing can leak out (of one’s mouth).

The memory is still fresh of then-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama last year at an evening dinner meeting, pierced by President Obama’s question, “Can you follow through?” regarding the issue of moving the U.S. military base outside of Japan. After this, the shamed Prime Minister Hatoyama never stepped foot in the White House again.

According to the American press, on Jan. 18 at the informal dinner meeting, President Obama expressed to the Chinese President Hu Jintao that if China did not put pressure on North Korea, the time draws near for it to be unavoidable that American troops be placed in Asia. It can easily be surmised that this was about human rights.

Those who were present, beside interpreters, were: on the American side, only President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon; on the Chinese side, only about two close aides were present. There is no doubt President Hu, who attended a state dinner the next day, still felt ill at ease, as if he had been at an “away game” dinner.

The press conference and public news spread an image of a strong America, but if you seriously consider Washington, it is behind closed doors where victory in international contests is at stake. Collecting data at leadership conferences, we can catch a glimpse of this aspect of the negotiations.