The Day After: Obama and China (Updated)
On Dissent’s website, Daniel Bell, a professor at Tsinghua University, writes about a lack of enthusiasm for Obama’s election that he has seen among his students:
So why aren’t Chinese students and intellectuals gripped by Obama-mania to the same extent as their counterparts abroad? One key factor is that relations between China and the U.S. have been good since the terrorist attacks of September 11, when the Bush administration turned its attention away from China and toward other perceived threats. Hence, there is less passion for an alternative approach to U.S. policy in China. What Obama said about China policy during his campaign—more protectionism, attacks on the Chinese government for “manipulating” its currency—could make things worse for China, and his views regarding North Korea and Taiwan do not point to any substantial improvements over current American foreign policy.
Nor does Obama’s Hollywood-like story of the historically oppressed minority group member who makes it to the top via talent and luck resonate much in China. What would be the equivalent? A Tibetan who rises to the top of the Chinese Communist Party? It doesn’t sound very inspiring.
Update: For more views about the recent election, see Caijing’s poll of readers, in both English and Chinese, about their views of Obama and his incoming administration:
It appears that the result of Tuesday’s election was of no surprise to the respondents, as almost 90 percent of both groups were expecting Obama’s victory. However, while over 60 percent of the Chinese readers believed that loss of faith in the incumbent administration was the primary factor in Obama’s win, many of those who took the English survey gave credit to the Obama’s policy promises. Neither group thought that race or the candidates’ character had a significant influence on voters.
POSTED COMMENTS: One Response
THE AUDACITY OF HOPE
“History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy.”
George W. Bush
In ‘The Audacity of Hope’, President-elect Barack Obama calls for a different brand of politics – a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies”. That’s his book. A senator and a lawyer, a professor and a father, a Christian and a skeptic, and above all a student of history and human nature, Obama had written this book.
“Change We Need” and “Yes We Can” were his winning slogans.
There’s nothing negative in his writings. Only inspiration and hope. Hope for all people.
Obama ran and won on ‘CHANGE’, and Americans have voted for change. History has just been made. The American people have had enough of fear, lies and cowboy-style foreign policy. Now that he’s elected, he has strongly confirmed that “change has come to America”. We are now all looking forward to the “new dawn”.
“America is freed from a burden” was the message from the foreign editor of the ‘Suddeutsche Zeitung’. ‘Le Monde’ praised the ‘Great Victory’, while ‘Le Figaro’ celebrated a ‘Historic Election’. The British Conservative opposition leader, David Cameron, enthused: “America has made history and proved to the world that it is a nation eager for change.” In a special edition of ‘Liberation’, Laurent Joffren, the editor, enthusiastically pronounced: “Finally hope! It suffices to imagine for a moment the opposite outcome: a stiff, conservative senator flanked by an ignorant mystic taking over for four years the brutal policies of George W. Bush.” And the Russian ‘Pravda’ said: “Eight years of hell are over….”. (Dare we hope that the eight-year nightmare is over?) Who cannot excuse the Americans for wanting change? Many Americans even hailed Obama as the ‘Prince of Hope’. Many a face we saw shedding tears of gratitude and hope.
But now we will stop these outpourings of emotion!
As a rule, Americans are rather more racist and conservative and, considering that race is always the sub-plot to the American story, one is justified in seeing this as a surprise victory. In Obama they saw an embodiment of the desired change. For many people, the change in the White House is seen as an end to a government they despised and which shocked and angered the world with its arrogance and military aggression.
The first African-American President-elect will be facing problems both on the domestic and on the international panoramas.
On the home front Obama will have to deal with the financial crisis affecting a large part of the domestic economy. Can he confront the mega-corporations, or face the centre of world power – corporate capital? Will a President Obama face the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers or the international corporations? Is Obama inclined to lead the American people to the promised land of peace and justice or simply to remove some of the barriers that have been erected over the last 40 years that have stifled the better instincts of the American people?
The American people gave him a popular mandate to change the U.S. foreign policy to defend human rights around the world, instead of defending particular and special interests.
Would he be able to honour his campaign slogans promising fundamental foreign policy changes and not just minor tactical alterations?
The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States will not change the nation’s image overnight. However, Latin America is a good place to start to lay out a new foreign policy approach of non-intervention, multilateralism and mutual respect.
Obama has promised to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, where he does not intend to leave any residual force. We are all waiting and hoping!
On the other hand, will he be able to keep his promise to refrain from getting the U.S. involved in any future military hostilities, and enter more into new diplomatic initiatives, proposing a comprehensive approach involving direct talks with Iran?
He will need to address Afghanistan next. He will ask U.S. allies to join him in the effort, while many European countries are actively reducing their deployments in Afghanistan to save money.
But will this amazing thing that has happened in America make any difference to the world, to the children in Baghdad, Kabul, Beirut, Gaza, Teheran and all the other places in the sight of American guns – unless that difference takes place.
Let us all hope that this election will neither prove to be a necessary rotation of management, at the highest level of the Anglo-American elite, nor a matter of voting for the lesser evil.
The lesson is to ‘do what you got elected to do’! Let’s see that audacity in action!
“Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.”
H. Jackson Brown
November, 2008
Joseph M. Cachia
jmcachia@maltanet.net
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