A seasoned campaigner for high political office, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked the crowds in Asia on her maiden tour in office, making good on a promise to reach out to the world.
And though she is a tough competitor who narrowly lost the race for the US presidency last year, Clinton proved a hit with many when she showed her softer side.
Appearing at a university campus in Tokyo, she charmed and inspired her audience with self-deprecating jokes about her roller-coaster public life and lofty talk about the planet’s future.
PHOTO: AFP
In Jakarta, she poked fun at her music tastes on a popular TV show and mixed with smiling and cheering crowds in a slum benefiting from US aid projects.
Clinton moved an audience of 2,000 at Ewha University in Seoul, the largest women’s college in the world, becoming deeply personal at one point when she spoke of her love for her husband.
In Beijing, she spoke humbly about past US environmental mistakes when she visited a clean-energy plant to highlight the need for international cooperation in fighting climate change.
Less hard-edged than she often appeared to be during the presidential campaign, the 61-year-old has basked in the glow of warm contact with private citizens and public officials alike.
Upon meeting Clinton, one of China’s top officials, Dai Bingguo (戴秉國), said: “And you look younger and more beautiful than you look on TV.”
She reddened, before replying: “Well, we will get along very well.”
Clinton has signaled she plans to meet as many people as she can, both inside and outside government, in her role as the top US diplomat.
She has said the new administration of US President Barack Obama is looking to balance military might with the “soft” power of diplomacy and development — a combination the Obama administration has called “smart power.”
Her approach so far has stood in contrast to that of her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, an academic whose public persona on overseas trips was more reserved.
She says she wants to repair the damage to the image of the US abroad after eight years under former US president George W. Bush, although she does not mention the former president by name.
“I really believe that it’s that kind of outreach that we have to do everywhere ... there’s a real hunger for the United States to be present again,” Clinton told reporters traveling on her Asian tour.
“People still really want to like America and they want to know what we’re doing,” she said.
In Indonesia, she connected with a population fascinated by Obama, who spent four years of his childhood in Jakarta.
On popular television show Dahsyat, Clinton caused a stir among the young guests when she started off with: “I was just speaking to President Obama.”
Members of the audience, their eyes lighting up and voices rising with excitement at the comment, later wanted to know her tastes in music.
When she replied that she likes “old standbys” by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the audience applauded and cheered.
“I don’t feel so old,” she gushed.
She also complimented her audience by pointing out how Indonesia had changed over the years to become a place where “democracy, Islam and modernity” thrive.
It was a clear indication of how the new administration wants to promote Indonesia as a model for other Muslim countries with which Obama seeks a “new way forward” based on mutual interests and respect.
Clinton also spoke about the “struggle” against terrorism, discarding the “war on terror” language used by the Bush administration.
In Tokyo, she used a visit to a Shinto shrine to promote the Obama administration’s push for more “balance and harmony” in US foreign policy.
She also drew praise by promoting women’s rights on the tour.
During a meeting with Chinese women’s activists, one said: “I personally think you are a wonderful representative of the best women on this earth.”
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS