La visite de Barack Obama en Chine sera ce qu’elle sera, mais les pr\u00e9misses en annon\u00e7aient d\u00e9j\u00e0 la couleur \u00abWhen President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker<\/em>\u00bb, \u00e9crivait hier, 15 novembre 2009<\/a>, le New York Times<\/em> dans un article particuli\u00e8rement quoique subtilement d\u00e9faitiste et fataliste (journalisme \u00e0 l’am\u00e9ricaine, avec trois auteurs pour un seul article). L’article disant, en gros, que tout se passe comme si les USA avaient d\u00e9j\u00e0 reconnu la sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 de la Chine sur eux.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThat stark fact China is the largest foreign lender to the United States has changed the core of the relationship between the United States and the only country with a reasonable chance of challenging its status as the world’s sole superpower.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe result: unlike his immediate predecessors, who publicly pushed and prodded China to follow the Western model and become more open politically and economically, Mr. Obama will be spending less time exhorting Beijing and more time reassuring it.<\/em> []<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abIt is a long way from the days when President George W. Bush hectored China about currency manipulation, or when President Bill Clinton exhorted the Chinese to improve human rights.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbMr. Obama has struck a mollifying note with China. He pointedly singled out the emerging dynamic at play between the United States and China during a wide-ranging speech in Tokyo on Saturday that was meant to outline a new American relationship with Asia. The United States does not seek to contain China, Mr. Obama said. On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbHe alluded to human rights but did not get specific. We will not agree on every issue, he said, and the United States will never waver in speaking up for the fundamental values that we hold dear and that includes respect for the religion and cultures of all people.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tPar ailleurs, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9velopp\u00e9 toutes les facettes d’une politique d’accommodement et d’arrangement presque d\u00e9f\u00e9rent avec la Chine, l’article rapporte que d’autres canaux de l’administration Obama ont montr\u00e9 une attitude plus ferme. Si le NYT, journal officiel du pouvoir s’il en est, publie ces quelques lignes, c’est qu’il a re\u00e7u la suggestion pressante de le faire. Il le fait dans les formes de l’apparence de l’objectivit\u00e9, as usual<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOne hint of the Obama administration’s new approach came in a speech this fall by James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, who has deep roots in China policy. He argued that China needed to adopt a policy of strategic reassurance to the rest of the world, a phrase that appeared intended to be the successor to the framework of the Bush era, when China was urged to embrace a role as a responsible stakeholder.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbStrategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain, Mr. Steinberg said. Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China’s arrival,’ he argued, the Chinese must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe Chinese reaction has been mixed, at best. The official China Daily newspaper ran a column just before Mr. Obama’s arrival suggesting that the United States needed to provide some assurance of its own to respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, code words for entirely backing away from the issues of how China deals with Taiwan and Tibet.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbIn the United States, the phrase strategic reassurance has been attacked by conservative commentators, who argue that any reassurance that the United States provides to China would be an acknowledgment of a decline in American power. In an op-ed article in The Washington Post, the analysts Robert Kagan and Dan Blumenthal argued that the policy had echoes of Europe ceding the Western Hemisphere to American hegemony a century ago…<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe comportement US vis-\u00e0-vis de la Chine est un \u00e9trange m\u00e9lange dont le contraste semblerait devoir plut\u00f4t confirmer les Chinois dans leur m\u00e9fiance, et dans leur peu de go\u00fbts d’\u00e9tablir des rapports serr\u00e9s avec leur adversaire-partenaire. Les th\u00e9oriciens am\u00e9ricanistes ont toujours l’id\u00e9e du G2 selon Brzezinski<\/a> dans la t\u00eate, qu’ils justifient par la puissance grandissante de la Chine et des moyens de pression de la Chine sur les USA, tout cela pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 d’une fa\u00e7on qui tend \u00e0 rendre la puissance de la Chine par rapport \u00e0 celle des USA encore plus grande qu’elle ne nous appara\u00eet. Le discours d’Obama \u00e0 Tokyo fut \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard r\u00e9v\u00e9lateur, comme l’est l’article du New York Times<\/em>. A c\u00f4t\u00e9 de cela, les USA se rappellent qu’ils sont eux-m\u00eames la seule superpuissance h\u00e9rit\u00e9e de la Guerre froide et ils exigent des assurances des Chinois pour une coop\u00e9ration strat\u00e9gique dont rien ne dit que les Chinois y soient int\u00e9ress\u00e9s pas plus qu’un arrangement G2, d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. Le r\u00e9sultat est une position US incertaine et insaisissable dont on retient surtout, dans le seul domaine des faits, qu’elle constitue une reconnaissance de leur d\u00e9pendance extr\u00eame des moyens chinois, et une reconnaissance de la puissance chinoise qui donne \u00e0 cette puissance un statut inattendu.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n