Clinton Seeks a Shift on China

By MARK LANDLER
Published: February 13, 2009
Signaling a new, more vigorous approach to China, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Friday that the United States had nothing to fear from an economically ascendant Beijing and that it would press Chinese leaders on delicate issues like human rights and climate change.

In her first major speech as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton drew a clear line between the Obama administration’s approach and that of the Bush White House, which viewed China more as a rival than a partner and kept relations fixed on economic matters like exchange rates.

“Some believe that China on the rise is by definition an adversary,” she said at the Asia Society in New York on the eve of a trip to China and other Asian countries. “To the contrary, we believe the United States and China benefit from, and contribute to, each other’s successes.”

At the same time, Mrs. Clinton called for “rigorous and persistent engagement,” not just with China, but with Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, which are also on her itinerary. And she took note of Tibet, saying that Tibetans had a right to practice their religion without persecution.

Climate change will figure high on Mrs. Clinton’s agenda in Beijing, where she said she would emphasize how the two countries must work together. She plans to visit an energy-efficient power plant near Beijing that is a joint venture of General Electric and a Chinese partner.

While Mrs. Clinton noted that China had recently surpassed the United States as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, she was critical of American policies, too, saying that the stimulus package just passed by the House was lacking measures that would promote more energy efficiency.

“The idea that we just continue putting off the future, when we are supposed to be the country of the future,” is puzzling to non-Americans, Mrs. Clinton said, sounding less like a diplomat than a presidential candidate.

Not since Dean Rusk in the 1960s has a new secretary of state flown west rather than east on a first trip. But Mrs. Clinton, who has already sent special emissaries to the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan, said, “There has been a general feeling that perhaps we didn’t pay an appropriate amount of attention to Asia over the last years.”

In one sign of a fresh start, Mrs. Clinton said the United States and China would resume middle-level exchanges between their militaries, which China suspended because of American arms sales to Taiwan.

Mrs. Clinton said that in Japan she would meet with families of people abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, addressing an issue that has long agitated the Japanese, but which the United States has viewed as a distraction to talks with the North about its nuclear program.

Mrs. Clinton is also looking beyond Asia, preparing to dive into some of the thorniest issues on the diplomatic agenda. She said she would attend a donors’ conference in early March, held in Cairo and convened by Egypt, to help Palestinians in Gaza. She is also expected to go to Israel.

With Israeli leaders horse-trading over their next government after inconclusive elections this week, the United States is putting its near-term focus on the plight of civilians in Gaza.

Any broader initiative on the Arab-Israeli conflict, officials said, will have to wait until either the Israeli opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, or the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, is able to form a governing coalition.

Most analysts believe that Mr. Netanyahu has a better chance of doing so, a prospect that worries some in Washington, particularly if he is able to cobble together only a right-wing coalition rather than a broad one. That could dim prospects for a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

The State Department has been careful not to signal a preference in the jockeying for a new Israeli government, partly, analysts said, because President Clinton’s administration was criticized for favoring Shimon Peres over Mr. Netanyahu during the 1990s.

“The U.S. tried to intervene to get Peres elected, and it was counterproductive,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel, who described Mr. Netanyahu’s subsequently rocky relations with President Clinton in his new book, “Innocent Abroad.”

Mr. Indyk, who has advised Mrs. Clinton, said the Obama administration should use this transitional period to begin a dialogue with Syria, which has indicated it is eager to talk to the United States and which is viewed as a central player in the effort to broker a peace agreement.

For More Information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/world/asia/14diplo.html?hp