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Our first task was to reassert America as a Pacific power without sparking an unnecessary confrontation with China. That’s why I decided to use my first trip as Secretary to accomplish three goals: visit our key Asian allies, Japan and South Korea; reach out to Indonesia, an emerging regional power and the home of ASEAN; and begin our crucial engagement with China.
In early February, shortly after I took office, I invited a number of academics and Asia experts to dinner at the State Department. We ate in the elegant Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room on the ceremonial eighth floor. Painted robin’s egg blue and furnished with Early American Chippendale antiques, it became one of my favorite rooms in the building, and over the years I hosted many meals and events there. We talked about how to balance America’s interests in Asia, which sometimes seemed in competition. For example, how hard could we push the Chinese on human rights or climate change and still gain their support on security issues like Iran and North Korea? Stapleton Roy, a former Ambassador to Singapore, Indonesia, and China, urged me not to overlook Southeast Asia, which Jim and Kurt had also been recommending. Over the years American attention has often focused on Northeast Asia because of our alliances and troop commitments in Japan and South Korea, but countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam were growing in economic and strategic importance. Roy and other experts backed our plan to sign a treaty with ASEAN, which would then open the door to much greater U.S. engagement there. It seemed like a small step that could yield real benefits down the road.
A week later I went to the Asia Society in New York to deliver my first major address as Secretary on our approach to the Asia-Pacific. Orville Schell, the Asia Society’s silver-haired China scholar, suggested I use an ancient proverb from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War about soldiers from two warring feudal states who find themselves on a boat together crossing a wide river in a storm. Instead of fighting, they work together and survive. In English the proverb roughly translates as, “When you are in a common boat, cross the river peacefully together.” For the United States and China, with our economic destinies bound up together in the middle of a global financial storm, this was good advice. My use of the proverb was not lost on Beijing. Premier Wen Jiabao and other leaders referenced it in later discussions with me. A few days after the speech, I boarded the plane at Andrews Air Force Base and headed out across the Pacific.
Over many years of travel I’ve developed the ability to sleep almost anywhere at any time—on planes, in cars, a quick power nap in a hotel room before a meeting. On the road I tried to grab sleep whenever possible since I was never sure when my next proper rest would be. When I had to stay awake during meetings or conference calls, I drank copious cups of coffee and tea, and sometimes dug the fingernails of one hand into the palm of the other. It was the only way I knew to cope with the crazy schedule and fierce jet lag. But as our plane headed across the international date line toward Tokyo, I knew there was no hope of sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had to do to make the most of the trip.
I first visited Japan with Bill as part of a trade delegation from Arkansas during his governorship. The country then was a key ally but also an object of growing anxiety in the United States. Japan’s “Economic Miracle” came to symbolize deep-seated fears about U.S. stagnation and decline, much as China’s rise has in the 21st century. The cover of Paul Kennedy’s 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers featured a weary Uncle Sam stepping off a global pedestal with a determined-looking Japanese businessman scrambling up behind him. Sound familiar? When a Japanese conglomerate purchased the historic Rockefeller Center in New York in 1989, it caused a minor panic in the press. “America for Sale?” asked the Chicago Tribune.
In those days there were legitimate concerns about America’s economic future, which helped fuel Bill’s successful Presidential campaign in 1992. Yet by the time Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan welcomed Bill and me to Tokyo’s Imperial Palace in the summer of 1993, we could already see that America was regaining its economic strength. Japan, by contrast, faced a “Lost Decade” after its asset and credit bubble burst, leaving banks and other businesses loaded down with bad debt. Its economy, once feared by Americans, slowed to an anemic pace—which caused a whole different set of concerns for them and us. Japan was still one of the largest economies in the world and a key partner in responding to the global financial crisis. I chose Tokyo as my first destination to underscore that our new administration saw the alliance as a cornerstone of our strategy in the region. President Obama would also welcome Prime Minister Taro Aso to Washington later that month, the first foreign leader to meet with him in the Oval Office.
The strength of our alliance would be demonstrated dramatically in March 2011, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit the east coast of Japan, setting off a tsunami with hundred-foot waves and leading to a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. The “Triple Disaster” killed nearly twenty thousand people, displaced hundreds of thousands more, and became one of the most expensive natural catastrophes in history. Our embassy and the U.S. 7th Fleet, which had a long, close partnership with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, jumped quickly into action, working with the Japanese to deliver food and medical supplies, conduct search-and-rescue missions, evacuate the injured, and assist with other vital missions. It was called Operation Tomodachi, the Japanese word for “friend.”
On this first visit, I landed in Tokyo amid a rush of pomp and pageantry. In addition to the normal retinue of official greeters, two women astronauts and members of Japan’s Special Olympics team were at the airport to meet me.
After a few hours of sleep at Tokyo’s historic Hotel Okura, a pocket of 1960s-era style and culture, straight out of Mad Men, my first stop was a tour of the historic Meiji Shrine. The rest of my whirlwind day featured a get-to-know-you with staff and families at the U.S. Embassy, lunch with the Foreign Minister, a heart-rending meeting with families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, a lively town hall discussion with students at the University of Tokyo, interviews with American and Japanese press, dinner with the Prime Minister, and a late-night meeting with the head of the opposition party. It was the first of many jam-packed days over four years, each one full of diplomatic and emotional highs and lows.
One of the highlights was going to the Imperial Palace to see Empress Michiko again. It was a rare honor, a result of the warm personal relationship she and I had enjoyed since my time as First Lady. We greeted each other with a smile and a hug. Then she welcomed me into her private quarters. The Emperor joined us for tea and a conversation about my travels and theirs.
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Planning a complicated foreign trip like this takes a whole team of talented people. Huma, by now Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, and my director of scheduling, Lona Valmoro, who juggled a million invitations without ever missing a beat, coordinated a wide-ranging process to make sure we collected the best ideas for stops and events. I made it clear that I wanted to get out beyond the Foreign Ministries and palaces and meet with citizens, especially community activists and volunteers; journalists; students and professors; business, labor, and religious leaders, the civil society that helps hold governments accountable and drives social change. This was something I had been doing since I was First Lady. In a speech at the 1998 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I had compared a healthy society to a three-legged stool, supported by a responsible government, an open economy, and a vibrant civil society. That third leg of the stool was too often neglected.
Thanks to the internet, especially social media, citizens and community organizations had gained more access to information and a greater ability to speak out than ever before. Now even autocracies had to pay attention to the sentiments of their people, as we would see during the Arab Spring. For the United States, it was important to build strong relationships with foreign publics as well as governments. This would help ensure more dur
able partnerships with our friends. It would also build support for our goals and values when the government wasn’t with us but the people were. In many cases civil society advocates and organizations were the ones driving progress inside countries. They were battling official corruption, mobilizing grassroots movements, and drawing attention to problems like environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and economic inequality. From the start I wanted America to be firmly on their side and to encourage and support them in their efforts.
My first town hall meeting was at the University of Tokyo. I told the students that America was ready to listen again and turned the floor over to them. They responded with a torrent of questions, and not just about the issues that were dominating the headlines, like the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the ongoing global financial crisis. They also asked about the prospects for democracy in Burma, the safety of nuclear power (presciently), tensions with the Muslim world, climate change, and how to succeed as a woman in a male-dominated society. It was the first of many town hall meetings I’d have with young people around the world, and I loved hearing their thoughts and engaging in a substantive back-and-forth discussion. Years later I heard that the president of the university’s daughter had sat in the audience that day and decided she too wanted to become a diplomat. She went on to join Japan’s Foreign Service.
A few days later, at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, I saw how reaching out to young people was going to take me into territory well beyond traditional foreign policy concerns. As I stepped onto the stage at Ewha, the audience erupted in cheers. Then the young women lined up at the microphones to ask me some highly personal questions—respectfully, but eagerly.
Is it difficult to deal with misogynistic leaders around the world?
I responded that I would guess that many leaders choose to ignore the fact that they’re dealing with a woman when they’re dealing with me. But I try not to let them get away with that. (Nonetheless, it is an unfortunate reality that women in public life still face an unfair double standard. Even leaders like former Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia have faced outrageous sexism, which shouldn’t be tolerated in any country.)
Could you tell us about your daughter, Chelsea?
I could spend hours on that question. But suffice it to say, she’s an amazing person and I’m so proud of her.
How do you describe love?
On that one, I laughed and said that I now officially felt more like an advice columnist than Secretary of State. I thought for a moment and then said, “How does anybody describe love? I mean, poets have spent millennia writing about love. Psychologists and authors of all sorts write about it. I think if you can describe it, you may not fully be experiencing it because it is such a personal relationship. I’m very lucky because my husband is my best friend, and he and I have been together for a very long time, longer than most of you have been alive.”
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It seemed that these women felt connected to me in a personal way, and, wonderfully, they were comfortable and confident enough to talk to me as though I was a friend or mentor rather than a government official from a faraway country. I wanted to be worthy of their admiration. I also hoped that by having a conversation like this, person to person, I could reach across cultural gaps and perhaps convince them to give America a second look.
After Japan it was on to Jakarta, Indonesia, where I was welcomed by a group of young students from the primary school that President Obama attended as a young boy. During my visit, I went on The Awesome Show, one of the country’s most popular television programs. It felt just like MTV. Loud music blared between segments, and the interviewers all looked young enough to be in school, not hosting a national talk show.
They asked me a question that I would hear all over the world: How could I work with President Obama after we had campaigned so hard against each other? Indonesia was still a very young democracy; the longtime ruler, Suharto, was ousted in 1998 through popular protests, and the first direct Presidential election was held only in 2004. So it was not surprising that people were more accustomed to political rivals being jailed or exiled rather than appointed chief diplomat. I said that it had not been easy losing a hard-fought campaign to President Obama but that democracy works only if political leaders put the common good ahead of personal interest. I told them that when he asked me to serve, I accepted because we both love our country. It was the first of many times that our partnership would serve as an example for people in other countries trying to understand democracy.
The night before, over dinner with civil society leaders at the National Archives Museum in Jakarta, we discussed the extraordinary challenges the leaders and people of Indonesia had taken on: blending democracy, Islam, modernity, and women’s rights in a country with the largest Muslim population in the world. In the previous half-century Indonesia had been a relatively minor player in the region’s political affairs. When I visited as First Lady fifteen years earlier, it was still a poor and undemocratic country. By 2009 it was being transformed under the forward-looking leadership of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Economic growth had lifted many people out of poverty, and Indonesia was working to share lessons from its own transition away from dictatorship with other countries across Asia.
I was impressed by Yudhoyono, who had a deep grasp of regional diplomatic dynamics and a vision for his country’s continued development. In our first conversation he encouraged me to pursue a new approach toward Burma, which had been ruled by a repressive military junta for years. Yudhoyono had met twice with Burma’s top general, the reclusive Than Shwe, and he told me that the junta might be willing to inch toward democracy if America and the international community helped them along. I listened carefully to Yudhoyono’s wise advice, and we stayed in close touch about Burma going forward. Our engagement with that country eventually became one of the most exciting developments of my time as Secretary.
Jakarta was also the permanent home of ASEAN, the regional institution that the Asia hands back in D.C. had urged me to prioritize. In an interview in Tokyo, a Japanese reporter noted the widespread disappointment among Southeast Asians that American officials had skipped recent ASEAN conferences, which some saw as a sign of America’s flagging presence in the Asia-Pacific, even as China was seeking to expand its influence. The reporter wanted to know whether I was planning to continue this trend, or if I would work to reinvigorate our engagement. It was a question that spoke to the hunger in Asia for tangible signs of U.S. leadership. I replied that expanding relations with organizations such as ASEAN was an important part of our strategy in the region, and I planned to attend as many meetings as possible. If we were going to improve our position in Southeast Asia, as China was also trying to do, and encourage nations to agree to cooperate more on trade, security, and the environment, then a good place to start would be with ASEAN.
No previous U.S. Secretary of State had ever visited the organization’s headquarters. ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan met me with a bouquet of yellow roses and explained that Indonesians consider the color yellow a symbol of hope and new beginnings. “Your visit shows the seriousness of the United States to end its diplomatic absenteeism in the region,” he said. That was a rather pointed greeting, but he was right about our intentions.
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The next stop was South Korea, a wealthy, advanced democracy and key ally living in the shadow of a repressive and bellicose neighbor to the north. American troops have been on watchful guard there ever since the end of the Korean War in 1953. In my meetings with President Lee Myung-bak and other senior officials, I reassured them that although the administration in the United States had changed, our nation’s commitment to South Korea’s defense had not.
North Korea, by contrast, is the most tightly closed totalitarian state in the world. Many of its nearly 25 million people live in abject poverty. The political oppression is nearly total. Famine is frequent. Yet the regime, led in the e
arly years of the Obama Administration by the aging and eccentric Kim Jong Il, and later by his young son Kim Jong Un, devotes most of its limited resources to supporting its military, developing nuclear weapons, and antagonizing its neighbors.
In 1994, the Clinton Administration negotiated an agreement with North Korea in which it pledged to halt operation and construction of facilities widely suspected of being part of a secret nuclear weapons program in exchange for assistance in building two smaller nuclear reactors that would produce energy, not weapons-grade plutonium. The agreement also provided a path to normalize relations between our two countries. By September 1999, a deal was reached with North Korea to freeze testing of its long-range missiles. In October 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited North Korea in an effort to test the regime’s intentions and negotiate another agreement on continued inspections. Unfortunately, while the North Koreans made a lot of promises, a comprehensive agreement never materialized. Once President George W. Bush took office, he quickly altered policy and referred to North Korea as part of the “Axis of Evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address. Evidence emerged that North Korea had secretly enriched uranium, and in 2003, it restarted enrichment of plutonium. By the end of the Bush Administration, Pyongyang had constructed a number of nuclear weapons that could threaten South Korea and the region.
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