Clinton makes first visit to Asia

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has set off on her first overseas visit as top US diplomat days after pledging greater engagement with Asia. Her stops in Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China are the first time the region has been the initial trip for a secretary of state since the 1960s.

She will reassure Japan that its ties with the US remain strong, says the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington. She will hope to find a partner not a rival in China, our correspondent says.

Mrs Clinton has said that the US is keen to broaden and deepen its ties with Asia. "I hope to signal that we need strong partners across the Pacific, just as we need strong partners across the Atlantic," she said in a speech at the Asia Society in New York on Friday. "We are, after all, both a trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific power."

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But her final stop, China, will be at the heart of the tour, our correspondent adds. When she was running for president last year, Mrs Clinton wrote an article outlining her foreign policy stating that America's relationship with China would be the most important bilateral relationship in the world this century. Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Mrs Clinton said there were real opportunities to develop a good relationship with Beijing on issues such as climate change and clean energy.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7891511.stm

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Source: The Guardian

Clinton tries to build China climate pact

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington

Saturday 14 February 2009

Hillary Clinton hopes to recruit China as a partner in American efforts to reduce global warming when she embarks on her first trip as secretary of state with a seven-day tour through Asia this week. Clinton believes that creating common ground on climate change, starting with a presidential summit later this year, will help reconfigure America's ties with China, advisers say. A partnership between the world's two biggest polluters would significantly raise the prospects of a global climate change deal at a crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Breaking with the tradition for secretaries of state to visit Europe first, Clinton's tour, which starts tomorrow, will take her to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, with China as her last stop.

Clinton set out her ideas for the climate change partnership yesterday at the Asia Society in New York. The choice of venue was telling: experts from the Asia Society and the Pew Centre for Climate Change produced a report this week setting out a roadmap for a US-Chinese partnership in tackling climate change. Clinton was first briefed on the report several months ago and members of her team consulted the authors this week. Those involved say she sees joint action on climate change as a means to reset the relationship beyond the narrowly focused economic interests of the Bush era.

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Stern, who will accompany Clinton, said last week that it was time to open a new chapter on climate change talks. He told the New York Times: "We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem."

Chinese officials have also been sending out signals of co-operation. At a Brookings Institution forum last week, Beijing's ambassador to the US, Zhou Wenzhong, said China and America, by working together, could help set the stage for progress at the climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December.

The US and China together account for more than 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/14/hillary-clinton-china-climate

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No details on her trip to Indonesia, perhaps she's laying the groundwork for President Obama's upcoming trip there...?

[Turborama]

1. Hillary Clinton recognizes Indonesia`s economic role

I'm an expat in Indonesia so this means a lot to me and I'll be following it closely...

(A month old but relevant and appropriate IMO)

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in her statement when testifying as secretary of state nominee at the US Senate`s Foreign Relations Committee in Washington DC, last Tuesday (jan. 13), recognized Indonesia`s role in dealing with the global economic crisis.

"We know that emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia are feeling the effects of the current crisis. We all stand to benefit in both the short and long term if they are part of the solution, and become partners in maintaining global economic stability," she said.

"For too long, we have merely talked about the need to engage emerging powers in global economic governance; the time to take action is upon us. The recent G-20 meeting was a first step, but developing patterns of sustained engagement will take hard work and careful negotiation," she added.

Indonesia`s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended the G-20 Summit on the global economic crisis which was held in Washington DC, last November 2008.

In her statement Hally Clinton also recalled President-elect Obama`s mother, Ann Dunham, who had worked in Indonesia from late 1960s until early 1990s. Clinton called Ann Dunham as a pioneer in micro finance in Indonesia.

"As a personal aside, I want to mention that President-elect Obama`s mother, Ann Dunham, was a pioneer in micro finance in Indonesia. In my own work on micro finance around the world - from Bangladesh to Chile to Vietnam to South Africa and many other countries - I`ve seen firsthand how small loans given to poor women to start small businesses can raise standards of living and transform local economies," she said.

"President-elect Obama`s mother had planned to attend a micro finance forum at the Beijing women`s conference in 1995 that I participated in. Unfortunately, she was very ill and couldn`t travel and sadly passed away a few months later. But I think it`s fair to say that her work in international development, the care and concern she showed for women and for poor people around the world, mattered greatly to her son, and certainly has informed his views and his vision. We will be honored to carry on Ann Dunham`s work in the months and years ahead," she said.

From: http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2009/1/15/hillary-clinton-recognizes-indonesias-economic-role/