But there are still a few hints of the US' inherent "bossy mentality", if the speeches addressed by Biden and his team are examined.
Besides the emphasis on "mutual needs", the speeches of Biden and others still hold America aloof. They only wish to make contact with, listen to, and discuss with the outside world, not cultivate "equal partnerships".
In fact, it indicates that the Obama New Deal is not going to implement true "multilateralism", but a multilateralism under the guidance of the US.
On the Iranian nuclear issue, deployment of an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe, and the prospect of Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO, few hints signify a change in tone, let along a change of course.
Starting last Saturday, Clinton will successively visit Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and China.
It seems her mission is somewhat different from Biden's at the Munich Conference.
The mission of Biden was to win over Europe and coordinate the US stance with it, to soothe strained relations with Russia, and to loosen the rigid pose on the Iranian nuclear issue that the US does not directly negotiate with Iran, in order to show the White House is willing to offer carrots to states including Iran.
The focus of Clinton's visit to four Asian countries is to seek cooperation and support, especially in finance. Japan and China are the United States' largest creditors. The Japanese media has eagerly sensationalized the sequence of countries visited by Clinton, which is in fact not that important. What is key is the focus and content of the meetings, as well as the level and scope of cooperation. Nowadays, the US could not leave Japan, and could not leave China either, and vice versa. Also, strategic mutual beneficial relations exist between China and Japan.
For this reason, China, the US and Japan should work hard on promoting trilateral cooperation and seek win-win outcomes.
The "2 (the US and Japan) versus 1 (China)" scenario during the Cold War period has become obsolete.
Finally, it is worthy of mentioning the visit by Clinton to Indonesia. In his first TV interview, President Obama explicitly declared he seeks to reconcile US relations with the Islamic world, and said that the US is not the foe of the Islamic world.
He also admitted that "The US sometimes makes mistakes. "We are not perfect." This is a stark contrast to the behavior and deeds of eight years of the Bush administration.
It seems that the visit by Clinton to the most populous Muslim country is closely related to Obama's diplomatic Perestroika.
The author, Wang Yusheng, is a Beijing-based researcher in international relations.
(China Daily February 19, 2009)