Clinton declares "America's Pacific century"

[ellisonz]

Source: AFP

Clinton declares "America's Pacific century"
ReutersBy Paul Eckert | Reuters – 12 hrs ago

HONOLULU (Reuters) - With the United States facing a multipronged challenge from China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared on Thursday that the 21st century will be "America's Pacific century" and said the region's problems require U.S. leadership.

While stressing that the Obama administration will seek improved ties with China, Clinton used a speech ahead of an Asia-Pacific summit here to dissuade Beijing and others from thinking the United States is ceding its traditional role in the Pacific.

"There are challenges facing the Asia-Pacific right now that demand America's leadership, from ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea to countering North Korea's provocations and proliferation activities to promoting balanced and inclusive economic growth," she said.

Clinton's remarks, in a speech at the East-West Center, were part of a campaign by President Barack Obama to "pivot" U.S. foreign policy to focus more intensely on Asia after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-declares-americas-pacific-century-130939700.html

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We must pay more attention to our national interests in Asia. This begins with understanding the full history of our foreign policy in Asia.

[Ian David]

1. When does this peace start? n/t

[ellisonz]

2. A lot of this has to do with face...

There are very sharp disagreements over many issues. We need to be bold. :-)

[Mosaic]

3. She's wrong

It will be the century we get out of the Pacific. Empire is done.

[ellisonz]

9. Does this mean we get to give Hawaii back?

:rofl:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

25. But then Obama won't be a citizen!

Oh, no!

:hi:

[Tom Ripley]

22. +1

[Purveyor]

4. This may be all well and good Hillary but the USA if fucking broke! Educate our kids, fix our

infrastruture.

More foreign conquests? Really...

[ellisonz]

7. Do you realize how intrically intertwined the world economy is?

Reforming our trade policies in Asia is a big part of doing that.

[defendandprotect]

5. Sounds a little Imperialistic -- if not PNAC-like -- !!! :eyes:

[provis99]

6. that's just embarrassing and sad.

America is collapsing from within, and these State clowns still think in terms of a world empire.

[ellisonz]

8. Do you understand the role our trade is playing in that?

I don't think focusing on our increased interest there is a bad thing.

[Populist_Prole]

10. Depends on how you look at it

With the absolutely insurmountable trade deficit, I see it as: Less trade = Good for the US. It's all mathematical after all. We lose on every deal...we're not going to make up for it in volume. Given the size of the trade deficit - AND - the firmly ( and ever increasing ) entrenched corporate interests making it that way, there is abso-tively poso-lutely { sic ) no chance we are going to export our way out of this mess. None. No matter how high profile or heavily promoted whatever US exports do occur, or any lip-service at reform, It'll make nary a dent. You must know that.

[ellisonz]

13. I don't think you get to that by reducing trade.

You increase domestic consumption of domestic goods, increase exports, and reform the policies that have helped to make the trade relationship so unbalanced. Putting up barriers does nothing but provoke international tension with potentially disastrous consequences.

[Populist_Prole]

18. I'll never happen. It's by design. US bases multinationals will never allow it

In any case, free open trade to avoid "international tension" ( or "engagement" as neocons like to call it ) has been an abysmal failure. No country running a massive trade imbalance need fear a trade war; the country running the surplus on the other hand.......

[ellisonz]

19. You have a very skewed perspective on American democracy...

At one end you think we're powerless and at the other you seem to think we could start a trade war. I prefer a constructive approach.

[Populist_Prole]

23. I'm skewed and you're naive: Yes we are powerless, and no I fear not a "trade war" one iota

And be "we" being powerless, at the very best I mean the proletariat ( who truly are powerless ) or at the most pragmatic, the nation as a whole. Our "power" such as it is has not arrested the downward slide, let alone reversed it. In fact our "power" has accelerated it, because diplomacy is in deference to corporate interests.

Look, I sound cynical because I am cynical. Sorry, but I have no use for yet more happy-talk about globalism and "engagement". I have followed this issue, this dynamic since the mid-late 80's...hell, I used to be a pro free-trade neocon back then that believed all that bullshit economists and pols said about "engagement" and opening their markets to our products" blah blah blah. Fool that I was I didn't yet realize it was a benign smokescreen for corporations to extract economic rents to fatten their bottom lines. Doing more of the same and hoping, this time we'll get it right...only the "we'll" means multinational using labor arbitrage: In this they have been successful...and they'll say the working class is, courtesy of cheap shit from Walmart.

I'm sorry, but a "constructive approach" is what has been happening the past 20 somewhat years. You're not going to make dictatorships democracies by throwing our working class under the bus: It hasn't worked, and it won't work. I can't blame mercantilist economies of Asia so much really: I mean, why should they abandon a system that works so well for them, and adopt a system we use that works so horribly for us?

[JJW]

11. We need to be good consumers

to keep the Chinese economy growing. We will soon outsource our government to them, if they don't already own it.

[Citizen Worker]

12. It is when empires are on the way down that they become the most dangerous. Hillary and Barack

would do well to read Paul Kennedy's book on the decline of empires. The book has only been out for 23 or 24 years. There's probably a copy at their nearest library. That is, of course, the library is still open.

[ixion]

14. spoken like a true neocon

PNAC must be so proud.

[Dover]

15. Obama seeks to hitch U.S. economy to Asian growth

Barack Obama is launching a charm offensive this week to hitch the U.S. economy to opportunities in Asia he hopes can help power the recovery he needs for re-election.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, will host leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, including Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, in Honolulu this weekend to seek to improve trade ties across the region.

He will then travel to Australia to announce plans to boost the U.S. military presence in the region and will be the first American president to attend the East Asia Summit in Bali, where he will heap attention on the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia as well as India.

The campaign to cozy up to Asian powers large and small comes at a critical moment for the U.S. economy, whose recovery is at risk because of a spiraling debt crisis in Europe that dominated a summit of Group of 20 leaders in France last week.




http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/12/us-apec-obama-f-idUSTRE7AA2GQ20111112

[pampango]

16. Most Americans would agree: NYT: Survey - Americans Now Considering Asia More Important Than Europe

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/world/survey-shows-americans-now-considering-asia-more-important-than-europe.html?_r=1

This year, the survey showed that a majority of U.S. respondents (51 percent) felt that Asian countries like China, Japan and South Korea were more important to national interests than the countries of the European Union (38 percent). The results are a significant reversal in attitudes among Americans from 2004, when a majority of U.S. respondents (54 percent) viewed the countries of Europe as more important to their vital interests than the countries of Asia.

The report showed how a generation gap has emerged among Americans, with most young people aged 18 to 24 having a favorable opinion of China (59 percent) but older people, aged 45 to 54, feeling less so (33 percent). Seventy-six percent of younger Americans identified Asia as more important to their national interests, as opposed to 31 percent of Europeans who felt that way.

In contrast, the Europeans see China as an economic opportunity rather than a threat. Majorities in The Netherlands, Sweden, Britain and Germany said they considered China an economic opportunity. This was the reverse of the United States, where 63 percent of respondents felt that China was an economic threat and 31 percent saw it as an opportunity.

This year’s survey “marks a potential sea change for the trans-Atlantic relationship,” Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund, said in introducing the report. “We may have arrived at a watershed moment when the United States looks west to the Far East as its first instinct. This is a moment when trans-Atlantic leaders need to step up and lead.”

[ellisonz]

17. I heard about this on NPR yesterday.

The report showed how a generation gap has emerged among Americans, with most young people aged 18 to 24 having a favorable opinion of China (59 percent) but older people, aged 45 to 54, feeling less so (33 percent).

Seventy-six percent of younger Americans identified Asia as more important to their national interests, as opposed to 31 percent of Europeans who felt that way.

I think younger Americans have a very realistic view on what's going to be involved in producing economic prosperity and dimming the prospects of a major war in Asia. They are not thinking in outdated modes and models of thinking about this issue such as a simple reduction to claims of empire and special interest groups - they see our futures as intrinsically linked by globalization and seek to adapt to it rather than wind the clock back to the Cold War

Did you see this article? I think it shows how we can begin to make this more of an even relationship.

‘OMG Meiyu,’ a breakout hit Web show, schools Chinese in American slang

By Tara Bahrampour, Published: September 14

A young Chinese woman wanted to know: What is the English word for that gunky yellowish stuff in the corner of her eyes when she wakes up in the morning?

She turned to Jessica Beinecke, the 24-year-old host of an online travel video program aimed at young Chinese viewers, and Beinecke responded with a humorous segment for her show, explaining in fluent Mandarin and exaggerated gestures all the icky stuff that comes from the face.

Jessica Beinecke, 24, hosts an online travel and pop-culture show called “OMG! Meiyu” that has become a viral sensation among Chinese young people.

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The popularity of the show, called “OMG! Meiyu” and produced by Voice of America, has not escaped the notice of the agency’s executives, who recognize that hip and eccentric programming is vital to connecting with youths, many of whom prefer to go online than follow the stiffer, more traditional news and cultural programs the agency transmits through satellite TV and short-wave radio.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/omg-meiyu-a-breakout-hit-web-show-schools-chinese-in-american-slang/2011/09/13/gIQAXeLJTK_story.html

Anybody remember Tiannamen Square in 1989? 10s of Millions of Chinese still want freedom and democracy - even more want fair economic opportunity.

[JackRiddler]

20. Can they say they want to do more business in Asia without sounding like the empire of arrogance?

[Tom Ripley]

21. It's not going to be any kind of "American Century"

It will be the Eastern Century

[fujiyama]

24. I don't think this century will really "belong" to anyone

though I certainly agree that Asia will have a greater influence on world commerce, culture, and scientific/technological progress than they have in centuries.

We will see a much more multi-polar world. This will provide many challenges to the US, not primarily due to decreasing military power, but more due to the arrogance and hubris of maintaining and extending an empire - while the standard of living and investment in its own people diminishes.

What I see now is regardless of ideology, people have lost faith in all institutions, during a time in which little unites people. It took a great war last time to bring people together, but the enemies we have now are phantoms and massive investments in the military will not save the country from these threats.

[Fool Count]

26. It's like Imperial Japan declaring "East-Asian Co-prosperity Zone".

Time for other Pacific countries to get really fearful and increase their
military budgets.

[Islandlife]

27. Are we one with th middle east century?

Are we moving on without a resolution in the middle east or are we about to spread ourselves more thinly.