Clinton Headed To East Asia to Talk — And To Listen

[firedupdem]

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003052458

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will depart Sunday for East Asia in a trip that bears some resemblance to the “listening tour” she embarked upon when she was deciding to run for the U.S. Senate.

Besides engaging leaders on policy ranging from human rights to nonproliferation, Clinton told the Asia Society in New York that she wants to spend much of her trip listening.

“Too often in the recent past our government has acted reflexively before considering available facts and evidence or hearing the perspective or others,” Clinton said Friday.

The financial crisis, climate change and North Korean denuclearization will dominate her agenda as she visits Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and China.

“She’s going to have her plate full,” Del. Eni F.H. Faleomavaega , chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Asia and the Global Environment Subcommittee, said after presiding over a Feb. 12 hearing on North Korea’s nuclear program. He said her focus should be to “re-establish relations with our allies, reconfirm our commitment, I hope, that we want to work with the countries of the Asian Pacific region.”

Clinton’s first stop will be Tokyo where, even with Japan’s troubled economy, regional security and the nuclear threat from North Korea will likely be the focus of talks.

And while the Japanese are delighted to be first on the itinerary, according to Shiela A. Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, “there’s been a little bit of nervousness in Tokyo about this new administration and about the longer-term agenda for the U.S. and Japan.”

[Captain Hilts]

1. A sad statement that we get all excited at the idea that we'll "listen" to what other countries have

to say.

[Idealism]

2. Agreed, "listening" is a sign of weakness to Neo-conservatives