Why is Clinton complaining about China?
Via Daniel Drezner, it looks like Secretary Clinton is rethinking that whole "smart power" thing:
'As Clinton railed against cuts sought by Republican to the U.S. foreign aid program, she told senators, "We are a competition for influence with China. Let's put aside the humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in. Let's just talk straight realpolitik. We are in competition with China."She noted a "huge energy find" in Papua New Guinea by U.S. company Exxon Mobil Corp., which has begun drilling for natural gas there. Clinton said China was jockeying for influence in the region and seeing how it could "come in behind us and come in under us."...
She said foreign assistance was important on humanitarian and moral grounds, but also strategically essential for America's global influence.
"I mean, if anybody thinks that our retreating on these issues is somehow going to be irrelevant to the maintenance of our leadership in a world where we are competing with China, where we are competing with Iran, that is a mistaken notion," Clinton said.
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Grouping China and Iran into the same category is wrong for a number of reasons, not least because the nature of the relationships are fundamentally different. China and the U.S. may not be fast friends, but the relationship is considerably better than it is between the U.S. and Iran. Having America's top diplomat lump the two nations together doesn't seem particularly helpful.
Moreover, if the best the administration can do in defense of foreign aid is complain that Exxon Mobile might get the short end of a few Asia Pacific oil deals, they're going to have to up their game.
(AP Photo)