In a particularly rare piece on the People's Daily today, the govenrment of China announced a vote of no-confidence in Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. In other words, our Chief Diplomat no longer has the ability to negotiate in good faith with what many people consider to be the rising power of the 21st century. There can be no stronger statement that we need a new head of the State Department.
The piece, which is written in the broken English typical of direct translations of party announcements, has the following to say:
In the view of Rice, for the countries of a different kind like Iran and Syria, they have only to be contained or assaulted if they are not targeted for military strikes and an ensuing change of power as advocated by new conservatism. Despite lusters added to her diplomacy, she rejects compromises. Her diplomatic practice has apparent intrinsic traces from new conservatism in her propositions for pursuit of "isolated diplomacy", "sanction diplomacy" and "confrontation diplomacy".
In all of my years of China watching, I've never seen a piece like this come out of China. More, below the fold.
Because of the Bush-Rice practice of ignoring the Far East, China has risen in diplomatic prestige. One obvious and critical example is the US reliance upon Beijing for negotiations with North Korea.
Now, I ask you, in the corporate world, if a principle and irreplaceable negotiating partner tells you that they no longer have faith in your representative, do you:
- Fire the representative
- Reassign the representative to a different role
- Ignore the advice and continue relying upon the ineffective and now-powerless representative?
That Condoleeza Rice still holds any position of power should eliminate any vestiges of the idea of George W. Bush as our first "Business" President, with an MBA, running the country like a corporation.
China goes on to add the following criticism of Rice:
Consequently, "idealism" represents another connotation of Rice's foreign policy line. "The Middle-East has suffered for 60 years from a freedom deficit," Rice said. "It has suffered from the absence of legitimate channels for political expression. It has suffered from the absence of democratic change at a time when the entire rest of the world... has moved to democratic structures."
People seem to see the explicit dividing lines between the two opposing foreign policy lines from the above remarks of Rice's. Veteran diplomat James A. Baker, aware of the complexity and transferability of the relations between the foes and friends and the necessity for comprise, advocates a multi-polar diplomacy with a diplomatic equilibrium and proposes taking an international line, in an attempt to return the adventurous US diplomacy to the traditional track of realism. And Rice, however, has moved along the double track of new conservatism and idealism, which inclines to divide the world habitually into either black or white, either as friends or enemies with such options simplified as either "claiming friendship with them" or "meting out telling blows to them."
The piece doesn't come right out and call for Condoleeza to be fired, of course, because that could create some serious diplomatic friction between Washington and Beijing. And, of course, any criticism of Condi is an implicit condemnation of the policies of her boss.
The decision by the Bush administration to ignore the recommendations of the ISG, in particular, the suggestion of negotiations with Syria and Iran, is having far-reaching and serious consequences.
Not talking is not a signal of strength. It is a signal of madness, of unreliability, of devotion to a non-existant ideal that is, as China points out, simply not rooted in reality.
Make no misake, China is calling for a new partner in diplomacy, and for a new track. This is related to the North Korean negotiations, to be sure, but it goes beyond that. China, along with the rest of the world, has not been "fooled" by Condi Rice. When Bush appointed her, he announced that "[I]n Dr. Rice, the world will see the strength, the grace and the decency of our country."And China is now saying that, whatever she looks like, the substance of American Foreign Policy is simply unacceptable. It is not strong, it is not graceful, and it is no longer even decent.
We don't need a pretty face with no substance. We need a real foreign policy run by someone who understands that diplomacy is not a matter of convincing everyone else to do what you say, or else.