President Obama’s visit to China last week was a flop, if you listen to America’s media. He was not loud enough on human rights or China’s undervalued currency, and there were no substantial new agreements, most notably on the upcoming climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Depending on one’s ideological stance, this lacklustre performance reflected either ineffectual diplomacy by Obama or simply America’s vastly reduced standing in the world since the global financial crisis. Either way, the trip provided further evidence of the supposedly inexorable shift in global power from Washington to Beijing.
