Hillary Clinton slipped across the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen this week for a meeting with Dai Bingguo, her Chinese counterpart. One can make too much of these things. But there was something almost symbolic about the US secretary of state’s back-door entrance into the world’s second most important country.
Washington is seeking to re-establish a stronger presence in the Asia Pacific region, a part of the world relatively neglected by the former administration of George W. Bush. The US wants the region’s trade and diplomatic relations to be run along international – the cynic might say American – lines. But times have changed. Business is increasingly conducted on China’s terms. When, for example, Mrs Clinton told an Asian security gathering in Vietnam last year that the US was happy to mediate in disputes between China and its neighbours in the South China Sea, Beijing pushed back angrily. The US, though still a huge military, diplomatic and economic presence in the region, cannot assert its interests as forthrightly as it once could.
Washington’s strategy is to try to slip back stealthily into the heart of Asia Pacific without ruffling Chinese feathers. It is a tall order. A hint of this delicate policy objective was on display in a speech Mrs Clinton gave in Hong Kong this week just before she poked her toe gingerly into mainland China. Entitled “Principles for Prosperity in the Asia-Pacific”, the address masterfully avoided almost any mention of Beijing even though China lurked in the shadows. In apparent deference to Beijing, she even trod carefully in her remarks about Hong Kong, avoiding any reference to its frustrated progress towards a more genuine democracy.