Behind Hillary’s “Detour Around China”

American high officials’ “detour around China,” to a large extent, is aimed to borrow forces of other countries and take them up to the American way. Hillary’s personal energy and charisma, to a certain degree, have indeed made up for America’s deficiency in hard power.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently visited three continents — Europe, Asia and Africa — and a total of nine countries. One of her goals, at least in Asia, is to check and balance China. From minute shifts in words and conduct, we can still peep at America’s domestic policies, especially some noteworthy trends and changes in the election year.

Hillary’s Asia route in her global trip is not anything new; a month before, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s visit to Asia also passed around China (Singapore, Vietnam and India). Panetta’s first visit to Cam Ranh Bay showcased an obvious intention against China. Even further before, Hillary’s Asia-Pacific tour (Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Korea and Vietnam) in July 2010 had also left out China.

U.S. high officials’ frequent visits to the Asia-Pacific in the last two years mean to map out strategic roads for America’s “return to Asia.” Since Obama took office, America has played a high-profile role, via foreign diplomacy, in intervention on the South China Sea; in the military, an air-sea battle plan has been initiated; in the economy, the construction of an exclusive “Trans-Pacific Partnership” has been fastened in order to “return” to Asia. The interaction between China and the U.S., the world’s two largest economic entities, seems to slide from “strategically mutual skepticism” and tactical competition to strategic precaution and even face-offs, while there’s an apparently growing impulse from America to contain and restrain China by its Asia-Pacific strategies. In the face of a rapidly rising China, on-stage Hillary Clinton loses no time in manipulating, stirring and even broadening up some unsettled, controversial problems between China and its surrounding neighbors, seriously pressing down China’s strategic space.

The Obama administration started to shift its Asia policies two years ago; whether it was the highly propagandized “pivot” by the U.S. Congress or the mild expression of “re-balance” by Obama, or even U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke’s so-called “additional focus” from his March address in Shanghai — all indicated that the “return to Asia” had been established as a long-term policy.

Hillary, the chief executor and promoter of this policy, is worth attention. For two decades, Hillary has been in America’s public eye. Unlike her predecessors, she is energetic and smart: different from the scholarly prudent Rice and lacking Powell’s dedication and honesty, she has more of what it takes to make quick responses; an ability essential to survive in America’s hyper-competitive political ecology, or even to play to the score, a hallmark of officialdom.

However, the America represented by Hilary has lost the superpower status it used to have. Two wars in a decade — it hasn’t won either war, but it can’t quit. The financial crisis that started in America not only dealt a heavy blow to the world but also to itself, vaporizing an asset of $11 trillion. In face of a booming Asia and rapidly growing China, America is terribly poor in the hard power essential to render control. American high officials’ “detour around China,” to a large extent, is aimed to borrow forces of other countries and take them up to the American way. Hillary’s personal energy and charisma, to a certain degree, have indeed made up for America’s deficiency in hard power. Currently, busy with the presidential election and grueling domestic affairs, Obama likely has no time for foreign diplomacy. It’s no surprise, perhaps, that in the next few months Hillary will show an “above average” or “unexpected” performance in the international arena.

However, no matter what nice gimmicks Hillary could play in Asia, it’s likely that neither America’s national interest nor strength will enable her to incite inner fights between Asian countries at her will or without restraints. After several decades of peace and prosperity, most Asian countries in half of the world are not willing to “pay the bills” for the U.S. either. Although Hillary consistently demanded ASEAN members to complete “a code of conduct in South China Sea” despite China’s opposition, recent ASEAN conferences in Phnom Penh still concluded without reaching an agreement — unprecedentedly, not even with a joint communique. This indicates that many ASEAN countries don’t want issues in the South China Sea to strike regional stability and mainstream development, and that they particularly don’t want their largest trade partner in this area to be forced to quit the table and make a decision due to the problems surrounding the South China Sea.

Compared with two years ago, this time in Phnom Penh Hillary’s words and conduct have some constraints. At a time when ASEAN members can hardly reach a consensus on the problems of the South China Sea, outside haste only makes waste and is likely to bring the opposite results. At a higher strategic level, the tensions between China and the US should also cool down. After all, Chinese-U.S. relations have been deeply complicated and both parties have become interdependent.