A South Korean journalist in Seoul last weekend asked the visiting US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice a pointed question about how she coped with a bureaucracy staffed largely with white men.
Rice neither sidestepped the query nor brushed it away but took it head-on.
She reminded the questioner that neither of her predecessors, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright, had been white men, then asserted: "I'm a package, I'm black and female and me."
"I think I act as Condi Rice, and that's a person who is female and black and grew up in Alabama and lived in California and was a professor," she said.
She noted that her ancestors had been slaves but that "we're making a lot of progress in the United States." Rice concluded that her appointment was "a testament to what can happen in a democracy over time."
Throughout her first journey to East Asia as America's top diplomat, Rice showed herself to be tough-minded but temperate in public and patient in responding to the press. Many headlines focused on North Korea's nuclear ambitions but Rice said: "I don't see it by any means as the central issue of the trip."
Rather, she said, the trip should "be seen in the context of what is evolving in this region as a set of relationships that are going to have to manage a host of security concerns."
Rice, who was President George W. Bush's national security adviser in his first administration, seemed bent on establishing her credentials as secretary of state with leaders in Japan, South Korea and China.
She was almost effusive on the US alliance with Japan. In a speech, Rice addressed an issue important to status-conscious Japanese:
"Japan has earned its honorable place among the nations of the world by its own effort and by its own character. That is why the United States unambiguously supports a permanent seat for Japan on the United Nations Security Council."
In South Korea, where anti-American and anti-Japanese sentiments run high, Rice was guarded as she tried to put a good image on the troubled alliance. With Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon standing beside her, Rice said: "We will continue to coordinate very, very closely" on ways to react to North Korea's refusal so far to give up its nuclear arms.
Rice sought to be upbeat on the contentious US decision to reduce its forces in South Korea, which some South Koreans lament while others applaud. She noted the realignment would "return valuable urban land to the Korean people, while we continue to modernize the alliance."
What South Korean leaders said in closed meetings about differences with the US was not disclosed but Rice got an earful of South Korean thinking in questions from the South Korean press.
South Korean reporters asserted that many South Koreans do not consider the US an ally, that many thought the US should make concessions to North Korea, and many wanted Rice to retract the accusation that North Korea is an "outpost of tyranny."
Rice responded that North Koreans are "trying to change the subject. I'm not going to let them change the subject."
Several South Korean reporters asserted that the US was encouraging Japanese military expansion, that the US should not support Japan's petition for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and that anti-American and anti-Japanese feelings among Koreans were connected. Rice reiterated her praise for the US-Japan alliance.
In China, the emerging power of Asia, Rice was even more cautious. She said, "US-China relations have developed remarkably and in ways that would have been thought unthinkable a few years ago" but then laid out American differences with China.
She criticized a new law giving Beijing justification for attacking Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty but whose people wish to remain apart. Rice reiterated Bush policy that this dispute must not be settled unilaterally.
Rice called on China to undertake political reform: "We believe that when China's leaders confront the need to align their political institutions with their increased economic openness, they will look around them in Asia and they will see that freedom works."
Without naming China, Rice brought up a long-standing irritant: "American businesses lose US$200 to US$250 billion a year to pirated and counterfeit goods. Innovation stimulates economic growth, but innovation will suffer without proper protection for intellectual property rights."
Amid this serious talk, Rice flashed a sense of humor. Asked whether she stood by an article she had written in 2000, she replied: "Never write an article and then go into government; people might actually read it."
Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS