Reaction to Secretary Clinton’s Trip

Secretary Clinton in India

While in India and Thailand, Secretary Clinton had a jam-packed schedule of interviews, press conferences, meetings, tours and events where she interacted with not just foreign dignitaries and heads of state but also students, workers and average citizens. The reaction to her trip has been largely positive and below are a few samples of what is being said so far.

From Bloomberg:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her latest Asia trip to push two U.S. foreign policy priorities: keeping nuclear weapons from hostile regimes and enlisting global coalitions to achieve that objective.

Clinton used the spotlight she commands abroad in the past week to emphasize the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Her effort to rally a coalition behind that message at an Asian security meeting was an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama’s preference for multilateral pressure over military force.

Yesterday she excoriated North Korea’s unwillingness to abandon its nuclear weapons program, prompting a defiant press conference from a North Korean official attending the same forum.

[snip]

In two days of meetings in Thailand, Clinton kept the agenda focused on North Korea, seeking support for efforts to get the regime back to the negotiating table. In contrast to the Bush administration, which had little to do with Asean, Clinton signed a friendship treaty with the group and announced the U.S. would send an ambassador to its mission in Jakarta.

Before arriving in Thailand, she held strategic talks with India, discussions that will include asking the world’s largest nuclear-armed democracy to join global treaties and use its influence as an emerging economic power to halt the spread of sensitive technology.

“The United States is back in Southeast Asia” and “fully engaged,” she said.

From Raw Story:

East Asian nations will broadly welcome US moves to reengage with the region, with the world’s most powerful country offering a counterweight to China’s growing clout, analysts and diplomats said.

Suspicions about China’s hegemonic aims have also added to satisfaction at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement during the region’s biggest security forum this week that the “United States is back”.

Following years of relative neglect by Washington, Clinton signed a landmark friendship pact with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

While communist Vietnam and Laos and former communist Cambodia may have reservations about the increased US involvement, staunch allies such as Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are glad to see Washington back in play, analysts said.

“The United States does not want to be perceived to be ceding influence in the region,” John Harrison, a security analyst at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, told AFP.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said in his opening remarks to Clinton on Wednesday that the United States is the “key pillar for stability in the region in the 21st century.”

“The US is therefore an integral part of our past, our present and our future,” he said, adding that the region’s countries “appreciate the gestures you have made.”[emphasis added]

Here is VOA summing up Clinton’s trip to India:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just concluded her first visit to India, where she highlighted areas of agreements on defense and nuclear energy. There were differences on the U.S. push to lift trade restrictions and to control greenhouse gases. Some U.S. experts on South Asia say her main focus was to encourage India to partner with the U.S. and play a more assertive role on the world stage in counter-terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation.

Secretary Clinton set the tone of her visit at the very outset. “President Obama and I believe that we are entering a new and even more promising era of relations with India,” Clinton said. “And we are looking forward to working to broaden and deepen our partnership”

Before she left, the two sides had reached agreements that would allow India to buy fighter jets and space technology from the U.S. American companies will be setting up two nuclear power plants in India under the 2008 civilian nuclear deal.

Some U.S. experts on South Asia say her main focus was to underscore that India is a major player on the world stage and the U.S. will encourage India to play a more assertive role.

Walter Andersen at the Johns Hopkins University says Secretary Clinton achieved that.
“The bottom line was, it is to the U.S. strategic advantage to have strong India, whether or not there was a military relationship, strong India suits our purposes. On that foundation she developed it further,” he said.

Anderson says the two sides differ on significant issues, such as India’s refusal to accept strict controls on greenhouse gas emissions and on what he says in some cases are India’s protectionist trade policies.

And so he says the two nations can work on differences within the strategic forums they set up this week.

“That is valuable because before those issues become problems we will have discussed with each other and no one will be taken by surprise because we will bring up the key differences that we have,” Anderson adds.[emphasis added]

Secretary Clinton and Thailand's FM Piromya at ASEAN Regional Forum, Jully 23, 2009

And even Forbes has weighed in:

What has Hillary Clinton been doing in Asia in the last few days? First, she strengthened ties with the world’s most populous democracy, visiting Mumbai and New Delhi and inking important agreements. Then she headed to Thailand where, among other things, she attended the Asean summit and signed its Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, repeatedly slighted the grouping of 10 Southeast Asian nations, and Clinton traveled to Phuket, Thailand, to show the U.S.’s renewed interest in the region. By all accounts, her charm, wit and personal diplomacy won friends for Washington across South Asia…