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ShareFor all its crude oversimplification, that's a pop-psychology 'power lesson' that US president Barack Obama, currently winding down a tour of duty in East Asia, might genuinely learn from. The entire duration of his week-long tour to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea, was given over to projecting, in word as well as in deed, that under his watch, America wouldn't conduct itself as a 'beat cop' policing the neighbourhood. Instead, it would be looking to hand over its constabulary baton to emerging powers, including China.
To symbolise this lowering of US profile, and perhaps to signal partial atonement for (perceived) excessive projections of American military and hector power in the past, Obama practised to perfection a customary East Asian ritual: The bow. His exaggeratedly ceremonial bent-at-the waist bow to the Japanese emperor in Tokyo, which went beyond the requirements of diplomatic protocol in the modern era, drew excessive attention only because it appeared designed to invite attention. In the East Asian value system, the precise depth of a bow is a marker of many things, including social standing and (in some cases) contrition, and Obama appeared to be pointedly indicating that he represents a humbler, respectful America.
With China, too, Obama bent over -- this time backwards -- to avoid any public articulation that might offend Chinese sensitivities. In fact, he had been tiptoeing on the eggshells of Chinese feelings long before he even began his travels. When Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama was in Washington recently, he pointedly declined to meet him as a concession to the sensibility of Chinese officials, who cheerily call the Dalai Lama 'a jackal in Buddhist monk's robes.' He also pre-emptively offered China many concessions at a strategic level, and unilaterally signalled that China's place at the high table of global political powers was its for the taking.
But in his eagerness to please Chinese officialdom, Obama may have overcompensated and signalled weakness, not respectful humility. And even his 'charm offensive' was systematically blunted in China by the excessive restrictions that Chinese officials placed around him, which he accepted tamely so as not to offend their sensitivities.
For instance, during his interaction with Shanghai university students, which was modelled on a US townhall-style meeting but was minutely choreographed by Chinese officials, Obama's response to a question on Internet censorship in China (called the Great Firewall) was a masterly example of too-careful sophistry. So as to avoid even the faintest wisp of criticism of China's crude censorship of the media and the Internet, Obama played with words. "I am," he said, "a big supporter of non-censorship." Coming from a man gifted with silver-tongued oratorical skills, it was a particularly awkward turn of phrase.
Freedom-loving Chinese bloggers who had been encouraging Obama to face down China's top leader Hu Jintao with a Ronald Reagan-esque dare -- "Mr Hu, tear down this Great Firewall!" -- are disappointed with Obama's verbal gymnastics, and have taken to mocking him in the Chinese-language Internet. "Learn English from Obama," goes the taunt. "Instead of saying, 'I want to eat', say, 'I am a big supporter of non-hunger'."
Predictably, Chinese officials scented Obama's manifest overall tentativeness and rightly read it as weak-kneed genuflection by the leader of an economically enfeebled America. They refused to yield ground on any of the areas on which US wanted China's cooperation, and are instead turning the heat on Obama even more -- with criticism of US monetary and fiscal policies, and pointers to Obama on the risks of his meeting the Dalai Lama in the future.
In attempting to strike the right tone in a dialogue with China, Obama could have learnt a thing or two from Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd. The Chinese-speaking Rudd was in China last year (at the height of the ethnic unrest in Tibet), but instead of resorting to platitudes and flattery (in the way that Obama did), he told his Chinese audience that "true friendship" can only be built by a "direct, frank" dialogue, and by daring to disagree.
For India, which too has had trouble finding its voice in its engagement with China, the choice is starkly clear: We can enrol in the Kevin Rudd School of Honest-Speak and stand up for our 'core interests' in the relationship. Or we can enrol in the Obama Academy of Ritual Genuflection - and allow ourselves to be trampled over.
