Assessing the China Trip

Editorial

Published: November 21, 2009

President Obama has faced a fair amount of criticism for his China trip. He was too deferential; he didn’t speak out enough on human rights; he failed to press Beijing firmly on revaluing its currency; he achieved no concrete results. The trip wasn’t all that we had hoped it would be, but some of the complaints are premature.

The trip was a template for rising American anxieties about the rising Asian power. President Obama went into his meetings with President Hu Jintao with a weaker hand than most recent American leaders — and it showed. He is still trying to restore the country’s moral authority and a battered economy dependent on Chinese lending. Yet the United States needs China’s cooperation on important and difficult problems, including stabilizing the global financial system, curbing global warming, persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear program and preventing Iran from building any nuclear weapons.

On the positive side, the two leaders hinted in a joint statement that there may have been enough agreement on climate change to give momentum to the Copenhagen negotiations. An American government source said there also may have been some unannounced progress on North Korea.

But publicly, Mr. Obama pulled his punches on China’s exchange rate, saying only that Beijing had promised previously to move toward a more market-oriented rate over time. Despite its indebtedness, the United States has the world’s largest economy; Mr. Obama should have nudged Beijing to move faster. We hope he did so privately.

We were especially disappointed that China made no discernible move to join with the United States and other major powers in threatening tougher sanctions if Iran fails to make progress on curbing its nuclear weapons program. President Obama should have made clear in his private talks that the United States and Europe will act anyway if Beijing and Moscow block United Nations Security Council action.

It was also dispiriting that Mr. Obama agreed to allow China to limit his public appearances so markedly. Questions were not permitted at the so-called press conference with Mr. Hu, and his town hall meeting with future Chinese leaders in Shanghai not only had a Potemkin air, it was not even broadcast live in China. It’s obvious that the last thing Mr. Hu wanted was to get questions about issues like his brutal repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. That doesn’t explain Mr. Obama’s acquiescence in such restrictions.

Mr. Obama did not meet with Chinese liberals. In Shanghai, he spoke of the need for an uncensored Internet and universal rights for all people, including Chinese, and at the press conference he called for dialogue between Beijing and the Dalai Lama. He delayed a meeting with the Dalai Lama until after the China summit and should schedule it soon.

President Obama was elected in part because he promised a more cooperative and pragmatic leadership in world affairs. We support that. The measure of the success (or failure) of his approach won’t be known for months, and we hope it bears fruit. But the American president must always be willing to stand up to Beijing in defense of core American interests and values.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 21,2009, on page A18 of the New York edition.