by Kim Ghattas
Since her first trip to Asia, in February 2009, Clinton had grown more comfortable at managing the conversation with the Chinese and was able to draw her interlocutors out of the established script. In a very affable way, she told Dai that while there would be many opportunities over the coming two days to discuss heavy subjects, she needed to touch base on a few things right away. Lee Myung-bak, the president of South Korea, was giving an address to the nation the following day, and Clinton wanted to hear from Dai about how China viewed the situation, what it was prepared to do to make sure the Cheonan situation did not escalate. She was also keen to hear more about the state of mind and health of Kim Jong Il, who had just visited Beijing. As usual, Dai didn’t say much. The Chinese were reticent about their North Korean friends, as they knew American officials would brief the press, and it would be in the newspapers in no time.
The following day, the S&ED was logistically flawless, but not free of worry and tension. Discussions between the Chinese and the Americans were a very polite tug-of-war on many issues. China kept its currency artificially low so that its goods stayed cheap and appealing to buyers around the world. Washington said this was unfair competition and regularly pushed Beijing to appreciate its currency. But now Europe was in a financial crisis, Greece couldn’t pay its debts anymore, and the euro was looking shaky. The Chinese worried about the impact the crisis would have on their exports. This was not the time to make their products more expensive. The United States insisted the European crisis would not affect global growth, but the Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner was worried enough that he was planning to travel to the Old Continent to tell the Europeans to get their act together before they jeopardized America’s own, very slow, economic recovery.
And there was, of course, the Cheonan. All day long, the Chinese had said almost nothing in public about the incident. At the end of the day, Clinton held a press conference, alone, to commend the wise and prudent leadership of President Lee, who had just given his address. When journalists prodded her about what the Chinese were ready to do about their rogue ally, Clinton appealed to China’s sense of responsibility.
“The Chinese understand the reaction by the South Koreans; and they also understand our unique responsibility for the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” Clinton replied. She praised the cooperation with China in the past in response to North Korean “provocations” and said they were discussing how to cooperate again now. The Cheonan had become a category of its own in the S&ED.
Clinton also said a few words about an important announcement that had been made farther east, in Tokyo.
“I want to commend Prime Minister Hatoyama for making the difficult, but nevertheless correct, decision to relocate the Futenma facility inside Okinawa,” she said.
The announcement by Yukio Hatoyama to stick to the agreement with the United States and relocate the American base on Okinawa itself was the fruit of a year and a half of negotiation with the Japanese. It had started on Clinton’s first trip to Asia, in February 2009, when she had met with the Democratic Party of Japan—at the time, the opposition party. The Cheonan incident and growing Chinese bluster reminded Japan of the dangers lurking in the region. Earlier in the spring, Chinese helicopters had buzzed a Japanese destroyer, a few hundred miles away from Okinawa, and ten Chinese warships had sailed worryingly close to the southern tip of the Japanese archipelago. China was flexing its muscles, and Japan was suddenly feeling rather exposed. These were all good reasons to keep the Americans happy and close.
“As a former politician,” Hillary continued, “I know how hard Prime Minister Hatoyama’s decision was, and I thank him for his courage and determination to fulfill his commitments.” Hillary saw her past as a politician who had had to make difficult compromises as one of her key assets: she empathized with her interlocutors, and they felt valued and understood. It didn’t mean they were ready to sign away their country if she asked, her efforts to reason with Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai would have little impact. But such empathy did sometimes help leaders travel that last mile to make a decision, such as now.
“This is truly the foundation for our future work as allies in the Asia Pacific region,” Hillary added. The Obama administration was laying that foundation very quietly, block by block.
* * *
After two full days in Beijing, it was time for the grand finale inside the Great Hall of the People, just off Tiananmen Square. The two sides were keen to show that the two days of dialogue had produced something tangible. So with some pomp, a signing ceremony took place for a handful of memorandums of understanding on random topics from nuclear safety to eco-partnership and infectious diseases. American officials and their Chinese counterparts sat down at a long table, one after the other, to sign the documents, with a floor-to-ceiling dark-blue backdrop behind them, with the words “US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue” at the top. Standing behind them, Clinton looked on with a slightly amused face, Geithner to her right and Vice Premier Wang Qishan and Councilor Dai on her left. The signing done, the four top officials sat down at the table with microphones in front of them, their faces peering from behind big colorful bouquets atop a green tablecloth, rows of journalists facing them. It looked just like a press conference, but this was China. There would be no questions to China’s top officials, only statements from them. Clinton and Geithner would hold a press conference later at their hotel.
Dai Bingguo praised the “successful conclusion” of the dialogue. What did that mean in Chinese terms? Everybody agreed on everything? No big fights erupted? Difficult topics were avoided? It was hard to tell from listening to Dai. He sounded like a self-help business guru, talking about advancing cooperation to achieve results, the spirit and principles of communication, and the need to handle sensitive issues properly. It was all peppered with profuse use of the words “respect,” “mutual trust,” and “core interests.”
“Only by helping each other out as passengers in this gigantic ship of the China-U.S. relationship will we be able to move forward, braving winds and waves,” he added.
Meanwhile, China’s own, real ships had been causing waves in the high seas of the region. There was the Japanese destroyer incident earlier in the spring; the warships close to the southern tip; and in the South China Sea, the Chinese were making ripples that were upsetting neighbors from Vietnam to Malaysia and the Philippines.
We woke up on Wednesday, one week into our trip, eager to go home, but we still had to swing by Seoul. America’s best friend in the region needed some loving reassurance after the Cheonan attack. Clinton went to lunch with President Lee at the Blue House, but there would be no statements for the media, so we camped out at the Foreign Ministry waiting for the press conference to start. An e-mail arrived about Hillary’s next trip, to Latin America, in two weeks’ time. Philippe and his team were always busy planning trips, during trips, after trips—it was never-ending.
After the press conference, we ran to the vans and drove off to the airport to be reunited with SAM. The stories had already been e-mailed, broadcast, and telephoned to the world; we had a sixteen-hour-long plane ride home ahead of us. Sixteen hours to recover from sleep deprivation. Some officials were still high on adrenaline, and they wanted to share their views of what they thought had been a good trip. In general, we were constantly asking officials for briefings, but sometimes we just wanted to be left alone.
Two officials crossed the Line of Death to share with us what they had gleaned from Chinese officials. With one of them standing in the aisle, the other sitting on an armrest, those of us in the back rows leaned over the chairs to hear.
These types of briefings were done “on background,” meaning we could not name the people who were speaking to us, only identify them as senior officials. The anonymity allowed them to speak more freely by giving them a degree of plausible deniability, if things didn’t develop as they had anticipated. There was, of course, spin: officials wanted to shape the story to their adv
antage and put their version of events forward with the facts that suited them. But they could also be very open about the content of their talks, the goals they were aiming for, and the obstacles in the way. There are always exceptions, but as a rule, there were no lies: if officials couldn’t share information, they would ignore the question or work around it. Nevertheless, even on background, the candor of comments by American officials could infuriate the countries that were the subject of the conversation, countries like Russia, Pakistan, and China, where information is opaque, access to officials severely controlled, and the version of events put forward by the state often wildly divergent from the reality.
Somewhere above the Pacific Ocean, we were told that China was likely to abandon its caution and join international condemnation of North Korea’s role in the sinking of the Cheonan. The prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao, was traveling to South Korea for a summit over the weekend, and he was expected to express regret for the loss of South Korean lives and accept the findings of the international investigation about the Cheonan sinking. The officials told us the Chinese were frustrated by the erratic and irresponsible behavior of the North Koreans. The current leadership did not have the same strong, historical ties to Pyongyang as their predecessors did. They felt stuck with their ally and its sick, aging leader, Kim Jong Il.
We also learned that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, was finally going to extend an invitation to visit Beijing to Robert Gates, the U.S. secretary of defense. Gates had been trying to visit for a while, but the PLA, a powerhouse of its own, weighed in heavily on the country’s domestic and foreign policy decisions. For a while, it had expressed its discontent with Washington by refusing to welcome Gates and minimizing military-to-military contact.
Hillary always promoted both government-to-government and people-to-people contact around the world in her visits, but she also understood the need for displays of strength. She looked after diplomacy and development; Gates, her ally in Obama’s cabinet, was the implementer of defense. Together, the two secretaries formed a close team in Washington, usually taking the same side on issues. Clinton had purposely included top officers in her delegation to force the door open on military-to-military conversation. With a wide grin, the officials on the plane told us that the PLA might soon have an opening on its schedule for a Gates visit.
There was a collective eye roll from all the journalists. This background briefing was clearly all positive spin, and we were not buying it. It was clear to us that while the Chinese had nodded with a smile to Hillary and her team, the delegation had really come up empty-handed on the issues that were of core interest to Washington.
But if the United States was often a reluctant world power, the Chinese barely wanted to dip their toes, let alone dive, into the sea of world responsibilities. They weren’t sure their big new shiny boat would actually float, and they certainly didn’t want to lose face if it sank; they tried to stay as neutral as possible, sitting under a formal, elaborately constructed beach umbrella on the shore. On Sunday in South Korea, Wen offered his condolences for the families of the South Korean sailors; he also called for restraint and warned in general about the consequences of war. But there was no expression of regret for the incident and certainly no public condemnation of China’s protégé. Gates would not be invited to visit Beijing for another six months.
Watching from Washington in the days after our return, I thought back to the conversation on the plane. My colleagues and I had been right; it was all wishful thinking. But before the end of the year, I would come to understand why the American officials had sounded so positive.
10
MEET ME IN THE SEA
The Cheonan crisis carried on into the summer. At the United Nations, members of the Security Council listened to the South and North Koreans present their version of events and the results of their investigation. South Korea and its allies wanted to send a clear, unequivocal message to North Korea that its behavior would not be tolerated. But no one was sure how to do that. China would veto any UN resolution condemning the DPRK. The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, explored different options, while Kurt Campbell, the top man in charge of Asia at the State Department, traveled to Seoul to discuss these options with the South Koreans. The Security Council finally compromised and, in a presidential statement, condemned the Cheonan attack without naming North Korea as the perpetrator. Such statements were not resolutions; they were not binding and carried little weight.
Hillary had been keeping tabs on the discussion while juggling other crises and traveling twenty-one thousand miles to Latin America and Europe. Now it was time for her to show more support for South Korea. But because the earth was round and everywhere was always on the way to everywhere else, when we left at the end of July for South Korea, we first made stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Clinton’s schedule in Islamabad was once again full of public diplomacy events. She was plowing ahead, trying to maintain good relationships with the civilian leadership, the military, and the people. It was important to show that the United States didn’t reduce its relationship with Pakistan to one person, as had happened in the past with military rulers. But it was exhausting to be Pakistan’s friend. Washington still promised a long-term relationship, but the Pakistanis didn’t fully trust the offer. Every now and then, Hillary would ask Vali, the Iranian American expert on Pakistan, “We gave them all this money, why are they still screaming at us?” Or she would ask how Pakistan would respond if the United States made a certain move or launched an initiative. Vali never had a clear, black-and-white answer for Hillary; there were none in countries like Pakistan, where political behavior was not always dictated by reason—or at least not the same rationale as the West.
In Kabul, Clinton was attending an international conference to show support for Hamid Karzai’s government. Our stops here were short and felt claustrophobic. The Bubble shrank all the way down to the embassy compound and one outside location—the presidential palace or the foreign ministry, both barely a five-minute drive away, in heavily armored cars. Clinton met “real” Afghans during events held at the embassy, people the U.S. embassy trusted enough to bring into the compound. We slept in “hooches,” a Vietnam War–era slang word for a thatched hut, except that in Kabul they were drab trailers, and it was always cold.
This was a country that the United States was trying to get out of; our stops seemed to reflect that. In and out, quickly, in one piece. Afghanistan was not America’s future; it was the past, a painful, bloodied, scarred past and a bottomless money pit like Iraq. The military adventure in those two countries had been dragging America down for years, morally and financially. Like so often in the past, the minute U.S. troops set foot in a country, they started looking for the exit, perhaps understandably. The reluctant superpower never planned to stay long, but that was exactly why it was so hard to get out: missions were ill-prepared and ill-defined. Success, too, was ill-defined.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Richard Holbrooke, the envoy for Afghanistan Pakistan, had said. But most Americans didn’t have the patience for that. They were upfront, efficient, result-driven people who expected quick turnarounds and believed every problem had a solution. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, and so many other places, time was elastic. Tomorrow meant sometime in the future. Yes could mean no, no was sometimes yes.
Eventually, before anything was really fixed in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and sometimes before the real problems had even started, Americans had moved on, they had other problems to tend to. People on the ground could feel invaded, abandoned, and betrayed all at once. They saw America as an impatient, fickle friend. It didn’t matter how much money the United States had invested, wasted, spent; it didn’t matter how many U.S. troops had died.
They wanted more, just like we had in Beirut during the war.
* * *
On the flight to Seoul, we ate a light dinner: blackened chicken salad with cut melon
and watermelon for dessert. We chatted to some of the officials in the nook near the lavatory. Hillary’s daughter, Chelsea, was getting married that summer, as well as Hillary’s deputy chief of staff, Huma. Huma told stories about dresses and guest lists for both weddings.
We landed ten hours later, just past seven in the morning, groggy and crumpled. Even the gray morning light of Seoul was too glaring. We had an eleven-hour day ahead of us. Clinton’s suitcases, black garment bags and a large red cabin carryall, came down the steps and were carried down the red carpet to the waiting limousine. Two rows of South Korean men in wide yellow silk pants, black coats, and red flowing sleeves stood guard on either side.
Clinton emerged at the top of the stairs a few minutes later. She had changed into a red jacket and blue trousers just before landing. Beaming behind her sunglasses, she walked down the steps to be greeted on the tarmac by the South Korean ambassador to the United States. She was excited about this stop. It was one more building block in the administration’s policy toward Asia that had been carefully choreographed.
We would have a bit of time at the hotel to freshen up before the one-hour drive to the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, the border between South and North Korea. We would be long gone by the time Lew and his team brought our luggage to the hotel, so the trick on trips like this was to pack toiletries and a change of clothes before handing over your luggage for pickup—in this case, pickup had been twenty hours ago.
Outside the hotel our motorcade grew bigger. The U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates was joining Clinton on her excursion for a display of soft and hard U.S. power. It was rare for American secretaries of defense and state to travel together, and it was the first joint visit to the DMZ. America was making its presence felt in Asia in an unprecedented fashion. The South Korean officials traveled to the border by helicopter, a much faster ride. But Hillary didn’t like noisy, windy helicopter rides and avoided them whenever possible. Our press buses, rented by the embassy for the delegation, had green “Foreign tourists on board” signs on the windshields. An odd warning, but South Korea was working hard to be friendlier to foreigners, who often felt discriminated against in one of the most racially homogeneous countries in the world. Seoul was going to host the G20 summit later in the year, and the Ministries of Education and Culture had just announced a new initiative to educate students in global etiquette. The guidebook used in classes instructed students on their “role as global citizens and on how to interact with foreigners.”28