{"id":8652,"date":"2011-05-03T03:05:26","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T03:05:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-03T05:05:14","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T05:05:14","slug":"Eyeing-the-White-House-After-Service-in-China-","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=8652","title":{"rendered":"Eyeing the White House After Service in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, did not expect to be greeted with open arms when he arrived in Beijing last January on a mission to defrost relations with the People\u2019s Liberation Army. But neither did he expect the welcome he got: the maiden flight of China\u2019s first stealth fighter, to all appearances a carefully timed and public thumb in the Pentagon\u2019s eye. Blindsided, Pentagon officials considered whether the best response would be to pack up and leave before the mission had even begun. The American ambassador, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., advised forcefully against it. Too much was at stake, he said. Better to make clear Mr. Gates\u2019s displeasure, then move on to more serious business.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Which is what Mr. Gates did, raising the issue with President Hu Jintao and relaying Mr. Hu\u2019s embarrassed response to reporters shortly afterward. \u201cJon came in and gave sensible advice,\u201d said a person who was privy to the discussion and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the debate had been both private and official. \u201cIt was classic and proper handling of a difficult situation with the Chinese.\u201d It was also classic Huntsman. The ambassador, who was to leave his post on Saturday, has proved deft with the carrot and stick, mixing measured criticism of China\u2019s government with a relentless effort to cement its fractious relations with the United States.<\/strong> It has not always worked: in recent months, as China\u2019s growing crackdown on domestic dissidents drew Mr. Huntsman\u2019s pointed objections, the efforts of the ambassador and other American diplomats have been angrily rejected by Beijing. <\/p>\n

When President Obama selected Mr. Huntsman, then the popular Republican governor of Utah, as ambassador in 2009, pundits speculated that the president was working to edge him out of the race for the 2012 Republican nomination. Mr. Huntsman has implied otherwise in speeches, expressing respect for Mr. Obama\u2019s skills and saying that they share a common cause in improving relations. Now that Mr. Huntsman is publicly pondering a run for the nomination anyway \u2014 an unstated but clear reason behind his departure \u2014 the question may not be whether his China stint hurt his chances, but whether it improved them. Clearly, he did not achieve the goals he set. In a valedictory speech last month in Shanghai, he put his frustrations with China\u2019s prickly and suspicious diplomacy on full display.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
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