How things have changed since that heady evening in November 2008, when President-elect Barack Obama beamed hope globally.
This week in Asia, our veteran president appears even less effective projecting American power and advancing commercial interests than Jerry Seinfeld was back in 1991, trying, with Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, to bribe his way into a Chinese restaurant.
Reviewing analyses of President Obama’s latest interactions with a vast people whose collective economic growth and expanding geopolitical influence certainly will impact Americans, one cannot help worrying how China’s deepening ties with Russia may end up constraining options for the United States throughout the world.
Laughing and more serious matters
Relations among rival great powers give rise to gaffes and glimpses of humor — and this jaunt follows true to form in instructive ways.
Even before, and certainly after, Mr. Obama landed on Chinese soil, his hosts did not seem much amused by our leader’s nonchalance and antics. After all, they take protocol seriously.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin strode about, evidently unfazed by Western sanctions as he schmoozed his single largest energy customer. However, Mr. Putin did manage to cross another line to his detriment, when he draped his own coat to warm Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, in an excess of gallantry.
Below surface level, substantive concerns swirled.
In contrast to Russia’s numerous and far-reaching commercial energy-supply contracts with China, some hailed as “historic” a signing ceremony between China and America involving aspirations to reduce and constrain energy consumption patterns.
Newly emboldened political adversaries did not allow the White House time for a partial victory lap over Mr. Obama’s latest gambit that could well crimp our vital energy sector well before it tames China’s gargantuan and growing appetite for fossil fuels.
Other critics correctly cried foul as China flaunted, during Mr. Obama’s visit, a new-generation fighting aircraft, whose key components, let’s just say, may not only incorporate proprietary Chinese technology.
Spinning as best they might, allies in the American mainstream press tried to cast Mr. Obama’s Chinese interlude in positive terms.
Is it possible to reach objective assessments concerning the conduct of America’s foreign policy under Mr. Obama?
Distinguishing enemies and friends
In the wreckage to America’s standing, seen clearly since 1991 (when President George H.W. Bush evicted Saddam from Kuwait leading a broad international coalition), one thing is abundantly clear: Under both established political parties and “aided” by our diplomatic corps, America has great trouble distinguishing “enemy” from “friend.” (See an earlier take.)
The China that President Nixon and then-Ambassador George H.W. Bush helped open to the world, is destined to challenge America aggressively, inside and outside the Asia-Pacific region.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin flexes the physique he loves to display, not quite twerking in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere as he lets the world understand how unserious, unschooled and ineffective he believes mr. Obama now has become.
Beyond cross-cultural missteps, the dance now in view among America, China and Russia seems more important than most — when the music stops, and the plaisanteries end, new spheres of influence emerge in the shadow of brutal realities for the United States.
Forgetting troubled relations with Brazil, strained ties with India, and an undignified recent display in South Africa, the Obama administration likely has erred grievously pushing Russia toward, China
Falling before reality
Outside academic classrooms, leaders of substantial governments and corporations understand that economic prosperity, material well-being and national security depend upon retaining unfettered access in the physical world to essential supplies of petroleum, natural gas, and other fuels.
As China and Russia stake their claims on many real world energy sources, Mr. Obama and hapless Secretary of State John Kerry distract themselves, acting as “economic reality deniers” and insisting that global climate change is Earth’s most pressing issue.
Episodes playing out now across Asia will have widespread implications in ongoing and deeply disturbing negotiations with Iran as well as throughout the volatile, energy-rich and deeply troubled Middle East.
Mr. Obama has managed to fall down quickly handling too many crises poorly, with two long years remaining in his final term.
Inevitably, American presidents suffer from their pratfalls for years after they first occur.
President Ford, an expert athlete, never lived down his own hapless falls.
An attack by a “killer rabbit” unglued Jimmy Carter’s tenuous grip as a leader during extraordinarily challenging times in 1979.
Once partisan passions cool, perhaps historians will eventually conclude that Mr. Obama irreversibly squandered his remaining international clout when he unwisely decided to serve up his first “lame duck” performance in Beijing.
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