by Kim Ghattas
Finally, the pieces of the puzzle were complete—it was Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, a blind civil rights activist known as the “barefoot lawyer,” who campaigned against forced abortions by Chinese authorities trying to implement the one-child policy. The authorities had jailed him from 2006 to 2010 and had placed him under house arrest on and off since then. In 2007, Chen had won the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize—the Ramon Magsaysay Award—while still in detention for “his irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law.”
Jake called Hillary. Boss, we have an issue, he told her. Stand by. When he updated her later on a secure line from the State Department, Hillary’s first instinct was to say “Yes,” we have to take this man in. But she wanted Jake and the rest of the team to look at all the legal and political implications first. No one knew exactly what Chen wanted and most assumed he was seeking asylum in the United States, a long and difficult process with many political ramifications for U.S.-Chinese relations. But the clock was ticking fast. Chen’s situation was precarious. He was thirty minutes away from the embassy, a wanted man on the run who had escaped house arrest by jumping over the wall surrounding his house and had traveled four hundred miles, driving and walking for several days until he reached Beijing and met up with a contact. He was waiting on the outskirts of the capital in the car of another human rights activist. The Chinese police were in hot pursuit and would find him soon.
At the State Department, Jake and Kurt got on the phone to Beijing to get more details and spoke to the department’s top officials, from the chief of staff and counselor Cheryl Mills to legal advisors and the career foreign service diplomat Bill Burns. The president was informed and the White House said it would go with Clinton’s decision.
Soon, the choices in front of those meeting at the State Department became clear—not letting him into the embassy was just not an option. But how would he get there? If they told Chen to make his own way to the embassy, without help, he would never make it, and who knew what might happen to him. If the embassy staff picked him up, there was a 95 percent chance he would be able to enter the premises of the embassy, but the U.S. relationship with China might disintegrate. Clinton was getting on a plane in just a few days to participate in another long-planned round of the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
For six intense hours, Jake and the others weighed American values and interests so they could give Hillary as clear a reading as possible of what was at stake and how it might play out. Much of their thinking was being done in a fog of incomplete information and emotions as the hours passed and dawn approached. They instructed embassy staffers in Beijing to start driving toward Chen so they would be ready to pick him up when a decision was reached in Washington. The relationship between the world’s two biggest economies, the two biggest world powers, hung in the balance. Around three in the morning, when everybody had weighed in, some in favor, some against, Clinton and her team reached a final decision: the embassy staff should pick up Chen and bring him onto American territory.
On an emotional level, no one was ready to live with the stain of Chen’s death or abuse on his or her conscience. On a policy level, the calculation was that the relationship with China would survive, but if Chen was to perish in China the damage to the Obama administration’s human rights record would be irreparable. If the relationship with China was going to collapse over this, then it had been a house of cards and it was time to find out.
The saga continued as Clinton arrived in Beijing on May 2. She had said nothing in public about Chen yet and she avoided the traveling press corps while intense negotiations continued with the Chinese. Kurt and Jake, along with the new U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, met with Chen for hours inside the embassy and hammered out details of a deal with Chinese officials. Clinton intervened with State Councilor Dai to seal the agreement. The Chinese promised that Chen and his family would be safe if he left the embassy and that he could pursue legal studies in China. Chen said he was ready to leave the embassy. He was taken to a hospital for treatment of the wounds he had sustained during his escape, but the deal fell through when the Chinese reneged on their promise to treat him and his family well. He was cut off from American officials and his relatives back in his village were harassed. Meanwhile, despite the tensions around Chen, the S&ED dialogue continued, unperturbed, as the two powers discussed the issues that remained key to the relationship. Finally, on May 4, Clinton’s last day in Beijing, she negotiated with Dai to allow the barefoot lawyer to leave China. A few weeks later, he flew to New York City with his family.
For Clinton, the Chen Guangcheng affair and its resolution epitomized what she and Obama had set out to achieve at the start of the administration. They had methodically laid the groundwork for a solid, wide-ranging relationship with their rival, the kind that should be able to sustain the blow of a crisis—and it did. The S&ED concluded as planned and Beijing pursued its relationship with Washington almost as before, except for a few expected strident comments.
For Hillary, the denouement was a vindication of the comment she made in Asia, in February 2009, that had caused such consternation. Human rights were indeed one of many issues on the agenda of global cooperation with Beijing but they could still be forcefully defended, perhaps more so, because there was too much at stake for the Chinese to storm off in anger. The administration had replicated this style of engagement across the globe with all the big players on the global stage, from India to South Africa and Brazil, and with smaller countries, such as Vietnam. The stakes of walking away from a relationship with the United States were high for everyone; the damage often outweighed the benefits of a relationship with America. Clinton saw this as the real achievement of her years as secretary of state and of the Obama administration—working with the United States had once again become desirable. There would still be clashes of interest; Washington would continue to be criticized; its policies would still frustrate and anger many—it is after all the fate of every superpower. But America was once more a sought-after partner.
Clinton’s record as secretary of state will be judged by many in narrow terms—she did not make peace in the Middle East, stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear program, or set Afghanistan on a certain path to prosperity. But while these failings have an impact on U.S. standing in the world and on American national interests, the narrow prism can miss the wider scope of American influence today.
Perceptions of American power in the United States and around the world are lagging behind the reality of the twenty-first century and the “rise of the rest” not because American power is diminishing but because the nature of power has changed. American power is bigger than the sum of the successes and setbacks on the issues that any administration tackles. While the war in Iraq seemed to send the United States hurtling down the road toward decline, it was indicative of a level of hubris that was out of step with the changing world. The United States can no longer decide what the goal is, how it will be achieved, and then take the lead and force others to follow. There is no “You are with us or against us” anymore.
Clinton’s key contribution is therefore more intangible but, if pursued, longer lasting—repositioning America as a leader in a changed world, a palatable global chairman of the board who can help navigate the coming crises, from climate change, to further economic turmoil, to demographic explosions. As part of the Obama administration’s effort to redefine American leadership, Clinton became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the concept of smart power. She institutionalized this approach in the Building: budgets now include funds for gender issues, foreign service officers are embedded at the Pentagon, economic statecraft is part of the diplomatic brief. Clinton was determined to make sure her work would not be undone after her departure and planned to invest a lot of her time following up and providing counsel to her successor.
Clinton was ready to glide out of her position as secre
tary of state with job approval ratings nearing 70 percent, with rumors rife about her potential run for president in 2016, despite her many denials. Then, on September 11, 2012, militants attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Clinton had nominated him for the post of ambassador to Libya and felt personally responsible for his death. The attack unleashed a fury of partisan criticism of Obama with Republicans predicting the unraveling of his foreign policy. But Obama stayed the course. Despite the shock and pain surrounding Chris’s death and the clear security failure, the administration understood this was the price to pay for expeditionary diplomacy. Ever the politician, Clinton managed to dodge most of the acrimonious attacks.
By the time she left office, Clinton had traveled a million miles, rebuilding her country’s image with her relentless public diplomacy and quietly reasserting American leadership.
Obama and Clinton believed that for America to continue to lead it had to rebuild a sound economic base at home, but early in their tenures the two former rivals differed in tone when they spoke about American leadership. Obama didn’t fully embrace American exceptionalism and hesitated to speak forcefully about American power. Over the course of his presidency, he realized that he sounded too modest about what America was and what it wanted to do. He was signaling that America was going home, and this opened a gap that was now being filled by China or Turkey, countries that have a stake in running the world but are still too focused on their own narrow, domestic needs and problems to exercise global leadership.
By the time he gave his State of the Union address in 2012, Obama was on the same page as Clinton.
“From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back,” Obama said when he addressed Congress in January 2012.
“Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
The Obama administration has laid the groundwork for continued American leadership into the twenty-first century. The foundations are still fragile and there are no guarantees of success. But Clinton and Obama strongly believed that smart power was the only way forward for America.
“This is truly the inflection point, because we now understand that America, as powerful and strong as we are, cannot remake societies,” Clinton told me. “We can help liberate them, like Libya, but we cannot remake them. That must come from within, and there needs to be a reformation in thinking amongst people in countries that have been downtrodden, oppressed, violence-ridden, and there needs to be higher expectations and demands placed on leaders who should be reconcilers, not dividers.”
“The kind of help we need in the twenty-first century is for people themselves to overcome the differences that still divide them,” Clinton told me during the interview for the book.
As a superpower, America has been more willing than past empires to share the world that it has made, and there’s something there to hold on to. The difference between American power when I lived on the receiving end of it and today is that the gap between what America says it’s doing and what it is doing is becoming narrower. The difference between now and then is Tahrir Square, Twitter, the Syrian rebels, Chen Guangcheng, Sherhbano Taseer, Mohamed Bouazizi, and all those who are no longer willing to be taken for granted, not by the United States and not by their own rulers. Knee-jerk reactions blaming every wrong on America are outdated and not very productive. There are too many ways to effect change without the United States, or harness American power to advance one’s cause.
I had reached the end of my own journey too. I still struggle to accept that the Syrian invasion of Lebanon was one of those inconsistencies of American foreign policy. But I have met the human beings at the heart of the American foreign policy machine and I was willing to accept that they did not make decisions about war and peace blithely, at least not anymore. And while the anger and sense of betrayal I felt as a young teenager in Beirut are still with me, they are mitigated by my new understanding of American might and its limits. I can now see America for what it is, not what I want it to be or what was convenient for me to consider it. That perspective may be a more challenging one to hold, but I believe it is truer to the realities of today’s world. There is greater strength in that and a wider horizon of possibility.
Hillary Clinton’s official portrait on the State Department website, taken in early 2009. She conceded the race for the Democratic nomination on June 7, 2008, and soon after endorsed and started campaigning for Barack Obama. (STATE DEPARTMENT)
President-elect Obama leaves a Chicago press conference on December 1, 2008, with Clinton after formally announcing his picks for national security positions in his administration. Many were surprised by Obama’s choice, including Clinton herself. There were predictions of drama between the two former rivals. (AP)
Clinton is sworn in by Vice President Joseph Biden during a ceremonial event in the Benjamin Franklin room on the eighth floor of the State Department. Standing next to her are husband and former president, Bill; daughter, Chelsea; and her mother, Dorothy Rodham. (STATE DEPARTMENT)
The crowds cheered wildly when Clinton arrived at the State Department on the morning of January 22, 2009, for her first day at work. There was a campaign feel to the event as she shook hands while people screamed, “We love you, Hillary.” Behind her on the left, diplomatic security special agent Fred Ketchem, chief of her security, is standing guard. (AP)
A polarizing politician in the United States, Clinton had built a worldwide following as a First Lady and was welcomed like a rock star on her maiden voyage as secretary of state, which included this stop in Jakarta in February 2009. (STATE DEPARTMENT)
Clinton and her staff believed that public diplomacy was key to improving America’s image. They planned to beam her into living rooms around the world, starting with this town hall–format interview on the Dahsyat television show in Indonesia on February 18, 2009 (above). “Townterviews” were held on every stop of every trip for four years, including Jeddah in Saudi Arabia in January 2010 (below). (GETTY IMAGES/AFP)
Clinton spent a lot of time with varying success repairing America’s frayed ties around the world and strengthening others, from the gimmicky “reset button” with Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to the more comprehensive approach to ties with China. She built a close rapport with State Councilor Dai Bingguo; here she greets him at the State Department in July 2009. (AP)
During her first months in office, Clinton welcomed almost every foreign leader who requested a meeting, from close allies to less savory characters, such as Mutassim Gaddafi (above), son of Libya’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Meetings were usually followed with a statement in the State Department’s seventh-floor Treaty Room. (STATE DEPARTMENT)
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan (above) first started working for her during the presidential campaign and took on an increasingly important role in advising, policy making, and messaging during four years at the State Department. Deputy chief of staff and longtime aide Huma Abedin (below) was always by Clinton’s side, doing everything from advising her on cultural issues in countries such as Pakistan to holding her handbag. (AP)
By the end of 2009, Clinton and Obama were settling into their new roles as team players and Clinton was making her voice heard more forcefully within the administration. She had always had a good rapport with Biden. (WHITE HOUSE)
Clinton congratulates Obama in the Situation Room on March 23, 2010, after the health care reform bill was passed. During the Clinton administration, Hillary took on a leading and controversial role in the health care reform project. It was an unprecedented move for a First Lady and her role in the failed effort continued to haunt her into her presidential campaign. (WHITE HOUSE)
In July 2010 Clinton trave
led to the Demilitarized Zone, which straddles the 38th parallel and divides the Korean peninsula into North and South Korea. A North Korean soldier peers through a window as Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates get a tour of a UN building. The visit was meant as a display of soft and hard power. Clinton forged strong ties with Gates and his successor, Leon Panetta. (AP)
Clinton believed in building close ties with world leaders and in being accessible, in order to gain added leverage during diplomatic crises. At the Elysée Palace in January 2010, she had a “Cinderella moment” with French president Nicolas Sarkozy (above). She also had good ties with Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai but had little to show for it—here the two take a stroll in Dumbarton Oaks gardens in Washington (below). (AP)
Clinton worked to engage leaders in emerging powers, including Brazil, though exchanges with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and foreign minister Celso Amorim (above) were often testy. Clinton also made women’s and children’s rights a central part of her work as secretary of state and met with nongovernmental organizations everywhere she went. Here she visits an orphanage in Cambodia (below). (AP)
Clinton’s efforts, along with President Obama, to bring peace to the Middle East got off to a terrible start and ended with possibly the shortest round of talks ever between the Israelis and the Palestinians, in Sharm el-Sheikh in September 2010. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, second from the right (flanked by Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas), would be ousted from office in a popular revolution in February 2011. (AP)