After her successful visits to Europe and the Middle East, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday began a trip to Asia, starting first in India. She goes on to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan, South Korea and China. On each of her whistle stops, while she is bound to focus on issues of particular concern to her hosts, there will be insufficient time for much in the way of detailed discussion about very much. As with the Europeans, the main purpose of this rapid Asian tour is to signal that Washington is back in listening mode. Rice’s message is that the Bush White House now accepts that it cannot kick and bully the other key countries into accepting what it believes. It must instead find out what other governments think and try to carry its arguments by diplomacy rather than hectoring and brute force.
It is not, however going to be as easy a trip as she had in Europe. After beginning her visit yesterday, with wide-ranging and friendly talks with the economically emergent India, she ends with potentially difficult discussions in China. US officials will assume that the Chinese Parliament’s rubber-stamping of the law threatening Taiwan with military force if it declares formal independence from the mainland coming on the eve of Rice’s visit was no coincidence. The US is pledged to defend Taiwan but it is equally committed to friendly relations with Beijing, where America sees dazzling business opportunities. The Bush administration has expressed regret for the Chinese action at a time when relations between it and Taiwan seemed to have been improving. It may, however, suspect that the new law is China’s way of demonstrating to Washington that it has the biggest say about what goes on it its own backyard.
The Americans will also have noted that 24 hours after Rice flies back to Washington, senior North Korea officials will be arriving in the Chinese capital for talks that are expected to focus on the resumption of the six-nation talks on Pyongyang’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons. Even if this initiative is not the result of cooperation between Beijing and Washington but a purely Chinese project, Rice should welcome it. She should also listen if Beijing leaders suggest Washington tone down its anti-North Korean rhetoric which is being used by the paranoid Pyongyang regime to justify its nuclear position.
In Europe, Rice had to accept that name-calling was not going to get the Europeans on side. In Asia the dislocation has been more subtle. Washington has paid too little attention to the concerns and interests of other states when it comes to presenting its own view of the world.
When the farewell delegation in Beijing heads back to its limousines after Rice’s plane has left, it must be hoped that they, like her other Asian hosts, will have been encouraged to believe that from hereon the Bush administration is going to do a whole lot more listening and consultation with its friends and allies. If that is indeed the case, then the next step is for President Bush to deliver on his ally-friendly promises.
