Obama in China: what did you expect?

I’ve been reading some of the commentary about Obama’s trip to China and I am struck by the negative tone of much of what I’ve seen.  This piece in the NYT pretty well sums it up:

And then, Mr. Obama departed for China, where the authorities stage-managed and restricted access to his town hall meeting in Shanghai. He did offer a nuanced, oblique critique of China’s rigid controls and restrictions of the Internet and free speech without mentioning, let alone condemning, China’s government.

Mr. Obama and President Hu Jintao presented their two days of talks as substantive, even though they did not appear to make much progress on issues like Iran, China’s currency or human rights. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, took the unusual step of sending a statement to reporters — something he did not do for either stop in Japan or Singapore — saying the China trip went well.

The town hall meeting has come in for criticism from Obama supporters who feel he soft-peddled his critique of censorship.  Adam Minter, over at Shanghai Scrap, was not happy:

It pains me to write this (I’m an Obama voter and donor), but Obama’s performance this afternoon reminded me of nothing so much as an overly coached American businessman on his first trip to China, so concerned about what he should or should not say that he forgets what he wanted to say in the first place, and ends up going home with nothing but a hotel bill and empty promises.

He was especially disturbed by this line of Obama’s:  “I’m a big supporter of non-censorship“  On its own that is a rather awkward formulation, suggesting that censorship is the baseline from which we work toward non-censorship.  It seems ilke conditional support for freedom of information.  But just before that, Obama said: “…I’ve always been a strong supporter of open Internet use.” And a bit later he said: “So I’m a big supporter of not restricting Internet use, Internet access, other information technologies like Twitter. The more open we are, the more we can communicate. And it also helps to draw the world together.“ These are more direct, clearer defenses of open exchange of information and ideas without censorship.  I suspect the “non-censorship” line was not a calculated expression.  He did not sit down with his aides ahead of time and say: “let’s use the term ‘non-censorship’ because that will be less challenging to the CCP.’  More likely, it was extemporaneous.  He was just riffing on the idea he had already established when he said:

….I’m a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity.

That is why the CCP limited access to the live video feed of the town hall (the trascript is available, however): they do not want to highlight this idea and the contrast that is obviously drawn here with the US.

I would not go so far as my friend David Shambaugh, who, according to Xinhua, was very positive on Obama’s visit:

“The joint statement released on Nov. 17 is an extremely positive document — filled with countless examples of tangible Sino-American cooperation on a large range of bilateral, regional, and global issues,” David Shambaugh, a George Washington University professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a written interview with Xinhua.
…

“In the document and the two presidents’ joint press statements, there was a very positive emphasis placed on the overall goal of creating a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive relationship,” Shambaugh said.

He is referring to the long “U.S. – China Joint Statement” that outlined various and sundry issues, ranging from security to economics to environment.  It is a careful document.  It does not call unequivocally for improvement in human rights or for revaluation of the RMB or for sanctions on Iran.  Rather, it lays out an assortment of large and small matters that the two countries are working on together.  Neither state, it seems to me, comes away in an unambiguously superior position.  Each is tied to the other in many ways.  It is a description of interdependence.

And that is my main point here.  Those who see Obama’s performance in China as weak – i.e not pressing the PRC on any of a number of sensitive issues – are missing the larger structural reality.  The US is not so powerful that it can simply make demands of China without regard to its own vulnerabilities or weaknesses.  Take the currency issue, for example.  Has the US bees so responsible in managing its deficits and “imbalances” that it can easily and credibly demand that China take care of its surpluses and “imbalances”?  No.  The US has been flaunting its economic power for decades, avoiding painful adjustments and relying on China and other countries to finance our consumption and debt.  We’re really in no position to be dictating on this front, especially since the US needs the PRC more than ever to aid in global and American economic recovery.

Chris Nelson, of the Nelson Report (a DC political email letter) has a reaction to the negative commentary similar to my own:

We take issue with the tone and content of this sort of China coverage for the basic reason that no one outside the Central Committee denies there are real problems with the PRC on human rights, currency, Taiwan, Tibet, industrial policy, clean energy, climate change, espionage way beyond the norm, transparency on PLA expansion, et al.

And really troubling “new” issues such as China’s attempt to corner the world market on “rare earth minerals” (without which the computer age would come to a crashing halt) are surely right up there in the international “stakeholder” world with Iran and N. Korean nukes.

(See the US-China Economic & Security Review Commission annual report discussion, coming Thursday…)

So the real question and dilemma facing Obama is…does he want to try and get China to address all these problems constructively?  (Answer: hell, yes!)

OK, then, how do you deal with this long list of concerns and grievances?

Apparently the media expectation/demand is temper tantrums, public feel-good posturing, bellicose speeches about what China “must” do, and dancing the hula with the Dalai Lama.

Get a grip!

Obama said, going in, and has consistently demonstrated for the past week, that he’s trying a new style of communication and body language, if you will (see the much-discussed “bow” to Emperor Akihito) designed to facilitate serious discussion, with serious people, about serious issues.

Obama went to China. In Shanghai he said that freedom of information is a good thing that makes a country strong, thus implying that the PRC should open up more. In Beijing, with President Hu Jintao standing by his side, he said that human rights matter.  He said that the PRC should talk with the Dalai Lama.  He mentioned the Taiwan Relations Act.  He did not posture like a cowboy.  He did not hector.  He began a serious engagement with serious people about serious issues.