#ImWith Her #VoteClintonKaine Hillary Clinton: The China Hawk versus Donald Trump , a PinkPansy Polka Dot Poodle and Shoutout for Chinese Manufacturing

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A new US president faces a choice between continuing the ‘pivot’ strategy or accommodating Beijing
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Hillary Clinton at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in 2012H

illary Clinton watched as the tension in the Hanoi Convention Centre slowly mounted. First, the Vietnamese foreign minister rose to criticise China’s actions in the South China Sea. Then, one by one, other ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations raised similar concerns about Chinese bullying.

Sensing her moment, the US Secretary of State asked to speak to the regional summit. For the first time, she announced that Washington had a “national interest” in freedom of navigation and international law in the South China Sea. The Chinese were irate. Yang Jiechi, the foreign minister, looked at Mrs Clinton and warned “outside powers” to stay out of the South China Sea disputes. Turning to the other countries, he fumed: “China is a big country. And you are all small countries. And that is a fact.”


For the Obama administration, the “pivot” to Asia is its signature foreign policy initiative. After 200 years of primarily looking east towards Europe, the US decided that its main priority is the Asia-Pacific.Of the 956,733 miles Mrs Clinton travelled and the 112 countries visited as secretary of state, the 2010 Hanoi meeting was in many ways the defining moment of her tenure. And it provides a valuable glimpse of the worldview that the Democratic nominee would bring to the White House if she wins the November election.

By inserting the US directly into the arguments over the South China Sea, Mrs Clinton’s Hanoi statement was, in effect, the launch of the pivot, the moment the US declared to the region — and to Beijing — that the US would not sit aside as China tried to establish itself as the regional leader.

The phrase itself comes from an October 2011 article in Foreign Policy magazine by Mrs Clinton. In “America’s Pacific century”, she talked about the country being at a “pivot point”. While President Barack Obama will use an Asean summit in Laos starting today to cement the pivot as part of his own legacy, the reality is that it was very much a joint project between the president and the woman he hopes will succeed him.

For some US officials, including a few angling for senior positions in a future Clinton administration, the Hanoi meeting is evidence that she would be prepared to adopt a tougher approach to China. In Beijing, the meeting reinforced the impression that she was the principal China hawk within the Obama administration.