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NEW STEPS IN THE SINO-AMERICAN DANCE

Kent Ewing

Asia Times, February 6, 2009

Finally, 11 days after taking his place in the White House, United States President Barack Obama made a telephone call to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Both sides have given different versions of the conversation, but one thing they agreed on was that neither man mentioned "currency manipulation", the charge made against China by newly installed US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during his confirmation hearings before the US Senate's Finance Committee.

Predictably, Beijing reacted to the allegation with righteous indignation, after which Vice President Joe Biden was quick to temper Geithner's words with remarks of his own. Add to that the president's choice to ignore the currency flap in his first presidential call to Beijing and it appears that the Sino-American relationship under the Obama administration is off to an awkward, ambiguous start.

While anti-China rhetoric may play well in the US Congress and with an American populace seeking a bogeyman for the economic hard times that have befallen the country, Chinese analysts regard this initial fumbling as a sign of Obama's naivete and inexperience in foreign affairs. They point to Premier Wen Jiabao's recently completed European "tour of confidence" as a superior example of diplomacy that the Obama team would do well to observe and emulate.

(...) [artículo aquí]