Iran got an "open hand."
The Islamic world even got an "outreach."
And what did China get? Bupkis.
Instead of warm and fuzzy policy, they got a full court press in the western Pacific. And they've noticed:
The English-language China Daily in its lead editorial on Monday accused the United States of "scaremongering" over the perceived threat of China's rise and a signed Op-Ed article on Sunday declared, "East Asia not U.S. playground."
"The aim of America's strategic move east is in fact to pin down and contain China and counterbalance China's development," echoed Jiefang Daily, a Chinese-language version of the official Xinhua news agency, in a commentary on Sunday.
Chinese reaction during Obama's trip to Australia and Indonesia had been relatively muted, but it seems that hard-line anger is mounting with time to parse over events of the nine-day trip, which ended Sunday.
I complimented President Obama for this move. He's staked out our continued presence in Asia despite China's assertiveness.
But I also warned that unless we maintain the force to defend the ground we've staked out, we risk getting handed a defeat on our new perimeter. The Chinese apparently think that we can't back up the words:
[The] clenched-teeth editorial went on to say that "the United States doesn’t have the strength to encircle China now. What can it provide to the Asia-Pacific countries?"
Should the President vote present on our budget problems in order to back up his statements of our interest with real military power, we'll be worse off than we'd be without this outreach to allies in the western Pacific.
We shall find out if actions follow words once the Teleprompter is packed away. Will sequestration downgrade our credit in Asia?
UPDATE: Of course, President Obama has had time to see how well turning the other cheek works with nutballs before he could get around to doing more than slowing down arms sales to Taiwan to appease China. Speaking of nutballs:
President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will aim its missiles at the U.S. missile defense sites in Europe if Washington fails to address Russian concerns on its missile defense plans.
Ah, our friends the Russians. They also threaten to pull out of the New START treaty.
One, we're concerned with the Iranians and not Russia. Two, Russia retains the ability to overwhelm the spartan defenses planned. Remember that arms treaty doesn't even address Russia's shorter-range nuclear missiles. Russia will really withdraw from a nuclear treaty that gives them an advantage? And three, if we are concerned about Russia and they are the focus of our missile defense plans, how exactly is this pledge to target the missile defenses helping that perception? It's almost like the ability to nuke European targets is important to Russia.
I guess we aren't the only ones plagued with smart diplomacy. If the Russians keep this up, one day they'll wake up as surprised as China to find we are announcing the addition of Ukraine, Belorus, and Georgia into NATO. And they'll honestly wonder what they did to deserve that.
