Althouse: The NYT calls Obama's trip to China "grim."

November 18, 2009

The NYT calls Obama's trip to China "grim."

Link.

31 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: Well no kidding, all he got was a crummy t-shirt that has him looking like Chairman Mao.

But that is what happens when you are leader of the worlds biggest debtor nation.; 11/18/09, 1:32 PM
mariner said...: Kinda hard to disagree with isn't it (even if it's from the NYT)?; 11/18/09, 1:32 PM
MadisonMan said...: grim is mentioned as a comparative.

If someone claimed you were not so tall relative to Meade, would that mean Meade is tall?

I think a better and more descriptive word would be unsuccessful. Perhaps the people at the NYTimes can't spell that word.; 11/18/09, 1:37 PM
traditionalguy said...: What a hoot. The Chinese were 10 times smarter than we are. They KNOW communism is a one way trap into a poverty level existence and they are not about to let The Illusionist Obama drag their population back there with fairy tale stories about free benefits and a huge smiling face. The day the voters here figure that out will be the day that that Obama is impeached.; 11/18/09, 1:38 PM
Irene said...: I still can't believe he had the robin's eggs to call himself "America’s first Pacific president."; 11/18/09, 1:40 PM
Balfegor said...: Without the first lady at his side, he would not have the kind of round-the-clock coverage the first couple got during their inaugural tour of Europe.

Really? Maybe it's just a function of the news I watch, but I've never had the impression that first wives are anywhere near as big a deal in East Asian politics as they are in the US or Europe. Hatoyama II's wife is a minor media sensation in Japan, I guess, but that's because she's, uh, crazy.

Even the ballyhoo from right-wing bloggers back at home over Mr. Obama’s deep bow to Emperor Akihito did not seem to dent Mr. Obama’s Japan mojo; his aides say he was unfazed by the criticism.

I wonder whether he's mistaking his "mojo" there. On the internet, they're calling him "Obama-tan" (オバマたん, sometimes オバマﾀﾝ) -- using the diminutive (-chan), but with the cutesy childish pronunciation (-tan), like he's a mascot character or something. They're genuinely interested in and fascinated by him, but I don't know that it means quite what he thinks it means.

In Seoul, where Mr. Obama ends his trip, he will have perhaps his easiest leg. South Korea is a longtime ally that has been cooperating with the United States on vital issues like North Korea and does not appear to have any big ax to grind with the United States.

The axe is smaller than in Japan or the PRC, I guess, but there is one still -- both the Noh Moo-hyun and the current Lee Myung-bak administrations have been quite forceful in pushing through the Korea-US free trade agreement. I'm not sure Obama is even aware of the existence of the treaty, ratification of which is still being held up by Democrats in the Senate. Hopefully, he has something concrete he can give the government re: putting pressure on the Senate to ratify.; 11/18/09, 1:44 PM
Darcy said...: Still, they tried to help him a whole lot in that article. It's actually very amusing. How embarrassing on all counts for the poor NYT.; 11/18/09, 1:46 PM
ricpic said...: Wen Jiabao: You throw Taiwan under bus, we forgive debt. Deal?

Barack Obama: Deal.; 11/18/09, 1:48 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Obowma is over in Asia, looking like an ineffectual fool,bowing and scraping to the people who own our debt.

Meanwhile, here at home Palin is front and center drawing huge crowds of supporters, signing books, creating political discussions on Facebook; and invoking crazed slobbering responses from the Left who just can't help themselves in their unhinged hatred of a mere woman.

It must be killing Obowma. He isn't the center of attention.....Palin is!! Waaaaaaahhhh.

It would be funny it it wasn't all so dangerous.; 11/18/09, 1:51 PM
Cedarford said...: From the linked NYTimes article:

Kunihiko Miyake, who now teaches international affairs at Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University, said the United States and Japan still do not see eye to eye on their single biggest bilateral issue: how to make their cold war-era alliance relevant in a region where the balance of power has been upset by China’s rise.

“The two countries are in the same bed, but dreaming different dreams,” Mr. Miyake said. “The Americans want the alliance to be stronger, but the Japanese seem to want to do less.”

In short, Japan now sees America as a declining, ill-educated, uncompetitive nation
with uncorrected structural issues of crippling laws, staggering debt, poor leadership all hobbling it and ossifying it against nimble change. Much as the Soviet Union was in it's decline.

No wonder they wish a shift slightly away from America and towards the Rising China that Ruling Elite's trade and currency policies created. (Along with Clinton, Dubya, and now the Boy President).

Perhaps confirming Japanese wisdom is this scary article from Nouriel Roubini - the guy who predicted many aspects the economic collapse.

The Worst is Yet to Come:

Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.
In the minority community, the combination of underemployment, unemployment, and discouraged no longer seeking work structurally jobless is 25%. And anticipated to rise to 40%. In certain cities, and among young black males, numbers already exceed 40%.
The long-term picture for workers and families is even worse than current job loss numbers alone would suggest. Now as a way of sharing the pain, many firms are telling their workers to cut hours, take furloughs and accept lower wages. Specifically, that fall in hours worked is equivalent to another 3 million full time jobs lost on top of the 7.5 million jobs formally lost.

This is very bad news but we must face facts. Many of the lost jobs are gone forever, including construction jobs, finance jobs and manufacturing jobs. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of U.S. jobs are fully out-sourceable over time to other countries.

Other measures tell the same ugly story: The average length of unemployment is at an all time high; the ratio of job applicants to vacancies is 6 to 1;

Of course, Nassim Taleb, author of "The Black Swan", maintained Roubini is an optimist.; 11/18/09, 1:56 PM
garage mahal said...: The NYT calls the trip "grim", so that's an Obama stumble.; 11/18/09, 2:06 PM
rhhardin said...: Grim for Democrats.

The slack and missing gears in the machine are showing up.; 11/18/09, 2:09 PM
Bissage said...: Perhaps it would be helpful to note that President Obama is “doing the best [he] can with what [he] has to work with.”

So it goes.; 11/18/09, 2:13 PM
Bissage said...: Okay, that was the last one.

I promise.; 11/18/09, 2:13 PM
Cedarford said...: Trad guy - traditionalguy said...
What a hoot. The Chinese were 10 times smarter than we are. They KNOW communism is a one way trap into a poverty level existence and they are not about to let The Illusionist Obama drag their population back there.

Hardly. The Chinese recognize how well "Command, authoritarian" capitalism works.

Hitler and Lee Kwan Yew and the S Korean junta all showed how well capitalism can work if society is authoritarian-ordered so stuff can happen fast with dissent quashed. While capitalism and the motive of greed and profit can be used as an engine to raise the People and the State. Far higher and faster than economic models that extend communist and socialist principles to actual jobs and markets and industry.

From Soviet shoe makers to US public school teachers..we know how abscence of true competition and monteray incentives for excellence and better productivity pan out.

No, the Chinese are quite happy to keep Command and Control elements intact. This is not a "Free Markets and free access to all things done by American workers better done and cheaper by Chinese" translates out into Capitalist Freedom for Freedom-Lovers!!! and New Democracy.

Other nations are now seeking to emulate China, not a declining America.

Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore was right when he said the future was the Singapore model, not the messy slow, US democratic capitalism model. Which Yew viewed as an historical aberration caused only by new settlers lucking on to a land of vast resources, an almost Chinese-like work ethic in WASPS, and lucking into being the only large nation mostly unaffected by two World Wars.; 11/18/09, 2:14 PM
Arturius said...: What is grim is having the leader of a communist nation lecturing us on profligate government spending.; 11/18/09, 2:15 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Cedarford - So what you're saying is that the Chinese make the trains run on time.; 11/18/09, 2:36 PM
Unknown said...: And he bowed, (kowtowed, really) and everything.

Irene said...

I still can't believe he had the robin's eggs to call himself "America’s first Pacific president."

With anyone else, I would say Colorado oysters, but, considering he did an interview with Fox after declaring war on them, my 4 pound Yorkie Sherlock has bigger ones than him - and one of those never made it to the finish line.

WV "moliked" By now Sarah is moliked than Barry.; 11/18/09, 2:45 PM
Irene said...: @edutcher said, "my 4 pound Yorkie Sherlock has bigger ones than him."

So do my two poodles. And they are neutered.; 11/18/09, 2:51 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "The NYT calls the trip "grim", so that's an Obama stumble."

Yes, because if the NYT calls it "grim," then it must be quite abysmal. I assume kid gloves.; 11/18/09, 3:04 PM
Ralph L said...: What did they expect? Everyone knows Asians don't like black people! Especially when they hassel you for cash.; 11/18/09, 3:14 PM
Unknown said...: Irene said...

@edutcher said, "my 4 pound Yorkie Sherlock has bigger ones than him."

So do my two poodles. And they are neutered.

You beat me!; 11/18/09, 3:24 PM
Irene said...: @edutcher, *wink*!; 11/18/09, 3:27 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: I think this is a bad article. It spends more time trying to give us an idea of the mood in Asia than any specifics. Obama went on this trip to try and get China to raise the value of its currency. None of the other countries there supported the idea, instead they all took the opportunity to berate Obama for his protectionist policies and inability to control the national debt. The trip was a disaster.; 11/18/09, 4:22 PM
Anonymous said...: It's always grim when a mortgagee visits his bank to beg for mercy.; 11/18/09, 4:52 PM
Balfegor said...: Cedarford - So what you're saying is that the Chinese make the trains run on time.

Ja! I think it's better in Japan, though. Even the subways, you could time to the minute. Not like New York, where you might have to wait an hour for a train that's supposed to run every 10 minutes, and enjoy that genuine New York sewer smell that permeates the underground while you wait.

Chinese rail, though, one hears tales of Chinese trains packed with people going back to their hometowns for the holidays breaking down or getting delayed or cancelled. To hear it, they sound as bad as Americans. On the other hand, the Chinese are getting a shiny new rail system, thanks to the ability of their fascist government to run roughshod over local objections, private property concerns, and environmental issues. So there is that, I suppose, for the people who like that kind of thing.

We have seen the future. Yes, it may involve a boot stamping on a human face forever, but it works.; 11/18/09, 5:32 PM
former law student said...: Again Obama must solve a problem caused by 8 years of W's malign neglect. If a Republican suddenly has a solution for our balance of trade deficit, let him roar.; 11/18/09, 10:44 PM
gbarto said...: Again Obama must solve a problem caused by 8 years of W's malign neglect.

Poor Obama. It's a shame those mean, cruel rethuglikans made him raise all that money and run for office and get stuck with all this when all he wanted to do was eat his waffle.; 11/19/09, 12:00 AM
AllenS said...: let him roar

AllenS roars: Quit spending money that we don't have, and quit sending money to congressional districts that don't exist.

/roar); 11/19/09, 8:16 AM
Anonymous said...: Again Obama must solve a problem caused by 8 years of W's malign neglect.

Malign neglect? Dear God, the problem with Bush was that his domestic policy was, in fact, "Obama Lite" ("We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move..."). Likewise, the problem with Obama's domestic policy is that it is "SuperBush" (e.g., the bailouts aren't working - we need more bailouts!). Add to that the fact that Team Obama doesn't exhibit even a fraction of the Bush admin's foreign policy competence, and we have a real mess on our hands.

If Bush was guilty of malign neglect, then Obama is guilty of malign "care."; 11/19/09, 11:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Shorter version, Obama is like Bush, only moreso...; 11/19/09, 11:57 AM