Clinton’s Asian inaugural romp: Japan first, but China key

As news has emerged that Hillary Clinton‘s first foreign trip will likely be to Asia, professional Asia watchers are pondering the significance of the secretary of state’s reported maiden voyage.

It is in that context that The Cable received a tip on her itinerary, by way of Beijing.

"A little tickler not reported yet is that [Clinton] will be here 19 February," a Beijing hand tells Foreign Policy. "A day before China’s foreign minister Yang Jiachi had been expecting to travel to Washington. Washington hadn’t replied to the Chinese request so there were some raised eyebrows here."

Clinton will be on a "Seoul-Tokyo-Beijing and maybe Jakarta inaugural romp," the source added.

The State Department said Tuesday that it didn’t have the details yet on Clinton’s reported itinerary. An administration source suggested details on the trip would emerge in the next 24 hours. The Chinese embassy was closed for the Chinese New Year’s holiday and couldn’t be reached.

"I suspect that the order of her itinerary is going to be Japan first," said Adam Segal, a senior fellow on Chinese studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. The sequencing of destinations "means something. There’s been a great deal of worry in Tokyo about what they call ‘Japan-passing.’ That the Obama administration will be so interested in working with the Chinese, that they are not going to pay enough attention to the U.S.’s most important relationship in Asia, Japan. The Japanese have been very unhappy when [during the primary] Hillary Clinton wrote a Foreign Affairs piece, which the Japanese feel didn’t sufficiently stress Japan in it."

"Going to China is part of a larger signal that the Obama administration wants to send to China, about how our default position is going to be try to work with China on economic issues, climate change, North Korea and hopefully Iran and Darfur," Segal continued.

"This demonstrates the Secretary’s understanding that the locus of power in the world has shifted from Europe to Asia," said Mitchell Reiss, vice-provost of international affairs at the College of William and Mary and former director of the State Department office of policy planning under Secretary of State Colin Powell. "It recognizes that the most important relationship for the United States this century is likely to be with China.  Assuming that she stops in Japan first, it will also allow her to send an important signal to Tokyo that she will not engage in ‘Japan passing,’  thereby erasing memories of President Clinton’s visit to Asia when he visited China but not Japan."

"[Deputy Secretary of State] Jim Steinberg has a long interest in China," noted the Council on Foreign Relations’ Paul Stares. When Steinberg served as director of foreign policy studies at Brookings, Stares added, "He was particularly interested in long term trends on China as a player in global governance for the rest of the century."

Making Asia her first foreign trip "is a very good idea since the administration is already sending special envoys to the Middle East and South/Central Asia, while the NATO summit in April guarantees that Europe will receive a lot of high-level attention," said the Hudson Institute’s Richard Weitz. "With Ambassador Hill moving to Iraq, it definitely makes sense for Secretary Clinton to reassure our South Korean and Japanese allies as well as exchange views with the Chinese about global and regional economic, climate, and security issues."

UPDATE: Adds Washington Asia watcher Chris Nelson of Samuels International in the Nelson Report, "Clinton’s Asia trip main policy outcome is likely to be whether she can establish herself, and State, as the manager of US-China relations."