In a copycat response to the Tea Party movement, a Facebook-founded group called The Coffee Party USA has been gaining momentum and followers. Its ideological line is obscure, though apparently more Left-leaning than the Tea Partiers. Nevertheless, the Coffee Party could be a boon to conservatives, if only they’re smart enough to capitalize on it.

Tea Partiers aren’t fighting against totalitarianism. They’re fighting against what Alexis de Tocqueville would have called soft despotism — when citizens trade their personal liberties for comfortable dependence on the state.

But Tocqueville’s best defense against soft despotism was civil and political organizations formed and joined by citizens. Through association, Americans learned to appreciate their community in addition to their individuality. They discovered what they were capable of accomplishing without the help of government.

Ultimately, such civil and political associations actually prepare citizens for self-government.

Ironically, the Coffee Party’s mission states that “we recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans.” Despite its enthusiasm for the federal scale, the Coffee Party will be most effective if it sticks to the Tea Party model and remains local.

The Tea Party movement has been groundbreaking because it helped the little guy find his political voice — one that proved as loud as the president’s, in some respects. Already garnering national media attention, the Coffee Party could promote the same enthusiasm for local political involvement.

The biggest criticism against Tea Partiers has been their tone — at times judgmental, hostile, and uncouth. The Coffee Party has extended the invitation for Tea Partiers to join and discuss the issues with them. It’s an offer that should be accepted — a nice middle ground between the twin tendencies to preach to the choir and rail against the establishment.

If Tea Partiers can show their civil, logical side, this is a great opportunity for persuasion. Likewise, if conservative leaders attend and listen, it’s a great opportunity to expand their constituency. (Remember how effective Hillary Clinton’s listening tour was.)

Civil and political associations matter, but so do the ideas they advocate. The past year has shown an encouraging surge in ground-level political involvement. That suggests a citizenry uncomfortable with top-down governance. The Tea Party movement has demonstrated that public opinion does not originate in Washington but on Main Street. Now, if conservatives can politically engage with average citizens whose views are moderate or even liberal, they’ll do much to protect American liberty. Lucky for the Right, that’s a discussion that can be had over coffee or tea.

As freedom is on the decline across the world, journalists are also in grave danger. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2009 Attacks on the Press Report, released today, saw the death toll for journalists reach a record high.

The November 23 murder of 31 journalists in the Philippines helped drive up that number of deaths. The so-called Maguindanao Massacre was a gruesome example of the deadly impunity that arises in a country where the press is not adequately protected. (This photo gallery of the incident is not even the most graphic of those available online.) Furthermore, across the world, freelancers and bloggers were hit hard, lacking big-media support. Iran and China jailed the most journalists.

All this comes as little surprise, especially in light of the 2010 Freedom House report, released in January, which announced the longest uninterrupted decline in political rights and civil liberties ever seen in the report’s near 40-year existence.

But as freedom wanes, the role of these journalists is more important than ever.

Last year, the White House issued a decent statement on May 1, World Press Freedom Day. But landmark incidents like the Maguindanao Massacre did not elicit any comment at all to be found on the White House website.

But as the Committee to Protect Journalists points out, a “name and shame” strategy has worked in the past. “The guiding premise is that even the most brutal leaders in the world want to hide — or at least justify — their repressive actions,” writes executive director Joel Simon.

The year 2010 has already seen major threats to freedom across the world. The safety of journalists is one human-rights issue that Obama can support while also winning high public approval. Now it’s his turn to speak out.

Uncanny events in North Korea this week hint at the fragility of the regime and the effectiveness of sanctions. Though tough to confirm, it’s being reported that two senior members of the government have been canned, and the DRPK has had to backtrack on some of its pet policies, which were targeted at centralizing the economy and choking the black market.

In November, Pyongyang enacted major economic changes. It cracked down on private markets allowed to operate with very limited freedom since 2002. It restricted imports from China. It revalued the currency, replacing old bank notes with new ones and limiting how much money a normal citizen could swap out, introducing the new currency in a way that flagrantly favored corrupt party members and the elite. That policy alone wiped out the savings of many average North Koreans. Reports suggest the price of rice is now 100 times what it was in October, and starvation deaths are on the rise.

This problem is worsened because aid has been cut off. The South Koreans, led by the formidable Lee Myung-bak, have made aid contingent upon North Korean nuclear concessions. And North Korea lost 500,000 tons of food from the United States last year.

Though it’s tough to say exactly what’s going on in North Korea, the food shortage seems to have elicited popular outrage, becoming a turning point for its citizenry. Veterans from the Korean War staged a protest in Danchon, riots have broken out, and citizens have attacked officials patrolling the markets, according to news reports gathered from defectors, smugglers, South Korean news agencies, and off-the-record comments from Seoul officials. The ruthlessly repressive North Korean government appears to be caught off guard by the uprisings.

Now Pyongyang is yielding slightly. The author of the November policies has been fired, as was the government official responsible for ensuring access to foreign currency for Kim Jong-Il, almost certainly because European Union blacklisting. The North Korean government is likely easing some of the November restrictions.

This isn’t the concession the West has been looking for, by any means. But it’s a good sign. The sanctions, paired with North Korea’s own suicidal policies, are inflicting pain – pain that is evoking reaction from ordinary North Koreans, pain that is forcing Pyongyang to make at least some changes against its will. If Obama and his friends are smart, they’ll acknowledge that their sanctions can put Kim Jung-Il’s government in a corner. One of these punches may just be a deadringer.

Obama’s State of the Union offered what is being lauded by both liberals and conservatives as a climate-change compromise. The will to compromise is a necessary but welcome development, but don’t be fooled. Obama said:

… we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. And this year I’m eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate.

Though Republicans have supported offshore drilling and nuclear energy, this rhetoric pushes toward the same old goal. Such Democratic concessions are the cheap candy offered to entice Republicans toward more efforts like the stalled House cap-and-trade bill. And that sort of cap-and-trade bill is in no way a win for conservatives or for Americans.

The foreign media are reading Obama’s call for a “comprehensive energy and climate bill” as “code in Washington for a broad set of proposals that would also include establishment of a cap and trade program.” And only last week, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s deputy director said, “There continues to be very strong support among a range of legislators for comprehensive climate legislation that includes cap and trade.” By “range,” he must mean shades of Left.

Those who wondered how Climategate and Himalayagate would affect public opinion need look no further. A new study released today by Yale and George Mason researchers reports that since fall 2008, “public concern about global warming has dropped sharply.” Notably, the study finds public trust in both scientists and politicians has also decreased, as has confidence that a climate-change consensus exists among scientists.

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, says the results are not the consequence of Climategate alone — or, as he wryly puts it, “a set of emails stolen from climate scientists and used by critics to allege scientific misconduct.” Instead, he suggests that unemployment, the health-care debate, and general frustration with Washington have “largely push[ed] climate change out of the news.”

But that’s an unlikely hypothesis, especially given high-profile events like Copenhagen. In fact, the Google News Archives graph seems to show, if anything, an uptick in news coverage about climate change. The fact is, there has been effulgent coverage on climate change lately — and this study suggests that the public doesn’t like what it sees.

Perhaps most interesting is the statement made by Edward Maibach, director of George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication:

The scientific evidence is clear that climate change is real, human-caused and a serious threat to communities across America. … The erosion in both public concern and public trust about global warming should be a clarion call for people and organizations trying to educate the public about this important issue.

If Mr. Maibach really believes that the evidence is so clear-cut, he’s absolutely right; in light of the climate-change community’s recent woes, the public would welcome an education from scientists who both present and defend the evidence for climate change.

Google’s decision last week to stop censoring in China pointed international attention toward netizens, who have become increasingly bold in advocating for human rights and freedoms. These basement bloggers are putting a new spin on a tool long used by political reformists: music. Online music videos criticizing government corruption and censorship are successfully going viral, even as Beijing’s Internet crackdowns continue.

China Digital Times reports on one such video, “My Brother’s at the Bare Bottom,” which is conveniently translated into English on their blog. (The footnotes at the end help an English-speaking reader pick up on the nuances.)

“My Brother’s at the Bare Bottom” is primarily a criticism of Chinese censorship. But it also confronts the politicization of Chinese language. Beijing repeats its calls for “harmonious society,” a euphemistic justification for one-party rule, repression, and censorship. But the Chinese word for “harmonize” sounds the same as the word for “river crab.” This makes the buttery crustaceans irresistible to dissident mockers.

The success of these videos is enough to make Beijing’s censors … ehm, crabby. “Even the most self-censored Chinese search engine Baidu still can find over 29,000 copies of this song, including on one of the nation’s largest news and game portals, Netease,” the Digital Times writes. “If you search the title of the song on Google? Over 830,000 webpages show up.”

YouTube-genre flicks do not pretend to be catalysts for a social uprising; they’re an end in themselves. But while many feature silly cartoons and vulgar wordplay — take for instance “The Song of the Grass Mud Horse,” explained neatly by CNN here — they are not insignificant. We all remember what MTV perpetrated on the radio star.

Call it “Bare Bottom” exposure: the use of entertainment and humor can influence Chinese culture and thus, eventually, Chinese politics. The rowdy irreverence appeals to a broader, younger audience. In short, these music videos are the creation of a citizenry willing to question its government.

Such an attitude can ignite bigger changes eventually. It has happened before. Take, for instance, the trial of the band the Plastic People of the Universe in Czechoslovakia, which helped rally momentum for Vaclav Havel’s Charter 77, a precursor to Liu Xiaobo’s Charter 08.

A Chinese public willing to think and act independently — even if only online — foreshadows a time when Big Brother could find itself at the bare bottom too.

This has not been a good week for U.S.-Japanese relations.

Today, Japan ended its eight-year refueling mission that once supported the American war in Afghanistan. And on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton met with the Japanese foreign minister in Hawaii. The official remarks were awkward as both diplomats timidly addressed how to relocate the U.S. Futenma military base. The U.S. wants to move the controversial base to a different place within Japan, but the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, campaigned partially on reducing U.S. presence and has considered removing the base from the country altogether. So evident were the differences of opinion between Tokyo and Washington that a Japanese reporter questioned whether “you really can have substantive talks [on any topic at all] while the Futenma issue remains unresolved.”

There are many similarities between Obama and Hatoyama. Both came to power on promises of change, overturning an established political party. And change they have delivered. But change is tricky in the foreign-policy arena.

The refueling mission was an eight-year show of Japanese symbolic support for the U.S. efforts in the Middle East — a precedent not to be reversed lightly. And the United States thought it had resolved the Futenma issue back in 2005 — but now Hatoyama wants until May to reconsider that decision. “We now have a change in government in Japan and there are different views within the coalition government,” Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Tuesday in defense of the hesitancy and delays.

In a way, Tokyo has given the Obama administration a dose of its own medicine. But Japan’s reconsideration has resulted in a decrease in American trust. If agreements can end or reverse from one executive to another, policy will be limited by terms in office — and, thus, it will inherently be shortsighted. That’s the danger of pressing the restart button too often.

Washington and Tokyo have cooperated closely for 50 years. But if the two nations want to see another 50 years of friendship, as Clinton suggested this week, short-sighted policy just won’t cut it. On the other hand, continuity in policy supports alliances and international confidence.

Obama may find his Asian reflection less than flattering.

Google’s virile decision to stop cooperation with Chinese censors struck a pretty contrast yesterday with Hillary Clinton’s near-simultaneous speech at the East-West Center. While Google bluntly called out a moral conflict, Ms. Clinton’s speech conveniently sidestepped ideology. But those divergent morals and ideas are both powerful and problematic.

Clinton spent her speech focusing on the other sources of power — economic, political, and military. It was diplomatically savvy of her. But while morality and ideology can be approached with subtlety, they are the substance that underwrites American diplomacy. They do not need to be stridently asserted, but if they disappear altogether, America has made the biggest concession of all.

Clinton referred to the “principles that will define America’s continued engagement and leadership in the region” — but her principles seemed grounded in utility rather than moral or ideological commitment. Even her brief bone-toss to human rights fell short: she “applauds” the flaccid ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, in which even Burma has veto power. And without irony, in the subsequent sentence, she advanced her “principle” that “our institutions must be effective and be focused on delivering results.”

Compare that with the lancing statement from Google’s news-making blog. After discovering a hacking attempt that targeted Chinese human-rights activists, Google announced its decision publicly “not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech.” Furthermore, Google wrote, “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially all our offices in China.”

That was a gutsy statement, and it forces China to take Google seriously. Like the U.S., Google knows it may suffer greatly from impaired relations with China. And like American statesmen and diplomats, the Google executives have rightly attempted for years to uphold both their ethics and their interests.

However, when totalitarian China sits in the same room as democratic America or freedom-reliant business, there are underlying and fundamental differences in ideology and morality. Temporary agreements about specific details of the relationship — though often necessary and even good — do not mean that those conflicts have disappeared. Google’s stand against the Chinese Goliath has only increased its international reputation. Hopefully, if the United States is faced with a similar immediate quandary, Hillary Clinton will respond with the same moxie.

This week, the District of Columbia began charging shoppers 5 cents for each plastic bag. Consumers and grocery-store clerks are in for a headache.

A nickel might not seem like much. But anyone who has lived recently in Hong Kong and experienced their 6-cent bag tax knows how burdensome that levy makes commerce. There, grocery-store clerks must cram as much as possible into a single, side-split reusable bag – or face a perturbed customer. (Never underestimate the public’s desire to save a buck.) Milk, butter, and eggs become Tetris blocks; and consequently, the checkout lines grow longer and longer as clerks painstakingly pack for maximum space efficiency.

But that is not all. Customers once re-used their grocery bags to dispose of trash; now, in Hong Kong, they buy trash bags. This suggests the tax is not effective in reducing bag consumption; it certainly doesn’t encourage conservation of resources. But it does, evidently, cause delay and hassle for everyone.

The nice thing about living in Washington is that voters choose all of their city-council members, unlike Hong Kongers. Next time they’re voting, the harried shoppers of D.C. might remember this lesson in the unintended consequences of government meddling.

The French constitutional council may have blocked the president’s carbon tax for the wrong reasons late last night, but the message France unintentionally relayed about emissions-curbing taxes is still worth noting, especially as the United States may consider similar ones.

In an eleventh-hour decision, the court ruled the 17-euros charge for each ton of carbon emissions violated “the principle of tax equality” because it excluded 93 percent of industrial emissions.

Notably, exemptions would have been extended to the core of French industry, including power plants, steel factories, airlines, and public transportation. These very industries helped the great Charles de Gaulle restore France as a functional world power. They also helped him mitigate the appeal of communism. So crucial have these industries been to French standing that it is no wonder they were completely or partially excluded from the planned emissions tax.

The council’s decision is even more notable considering just who Sarkozy’s taxes would have hit: the average French citizen. The most taxed items would have been gasoline and heating fuel. To allay what certainly would have been inevitable popular angst, Nicolas Sarkozy intended to offer tax reductions or “green cheques” to low-income families.

Now, members of Sarkozy’s party have put themselves in an awkward position as they rework the proposal for mid-January. If they pursue the same measures but with more equal application, they will burden essential industries; and if they don’t harangue industry, their emissions efforts will be feebler — especially embarrassing in the context of France’s pre-Copenhagen posturing.

But de Gaulle would caution Sarkozy and his followers that a weakened industrial sector means a weakened France. And as the United States considers similar measures, lawmakers should remember that principle doesn’t apply to France alone.

Barack Obama has a golden opportunity next week at Copenhagen in the form of the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. If by the end of the conference Obama settles with New Delhi the details to implement the agreement, he will win on three crucial issues: (1) he will please business, (2) he will substantively contribute to international environmentalist efforts, and (3) he will reinforce American friendship with India at a time when the relationship has been strained.

Both India and the United States have applauded the agreement since its passage by both countries’ lawmakers last year, but details to address security, nonproliferation, and liability concerns have kept anything from actually happening on the ground.

The climate-change debate has often pitted economic interests against environmental ones, as the upset in Australia this week has shown. Here’s a chance for Obama to show that the two can be reconciled. The U.S.-India Business Council has said that the agreement will create a $150 billion business for civilian nuclear technologies over the next 30 years. The council’s president predicted the agreement will create up to 27,000 “high-quality” jobs in the United States over the next 10 years. Obama has acknowledged that the agreement increases American exports to India. And the CEO of General Electric has noted that the agreement “opens up prospects for U.S. companies to supply potentially billions of dollars worth of reactor technology, fuel and other services to India.”

Not only does the agreement please business; it also allows India a way to cut carbon emissions. Nuclear power, vastly underused in India, does not let off carbon dioxide, which has long been seen as the leading culprit in global warming. Worst for carbon emissions is coal — which now accounts for more than half of India’s energy. Some estimates even say India could avoid 130 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by switching from coal power to nuclear power — a substantial savings. “For comparison, the full range of emission cuts planned by the European Union under the Kyoto Protocol will total just 200 million tons per year,” wrote David G. Victor in 2006. Demand for energy in India will only grow as it develops. By simply implementing an agreement already approved, Obama can take credit for a significant role in India’s energy future.

Nailing down the details of the agreement accomplishes both economic and environmental goals while also reinforcing good relations with India. And relations with India under Obama have already endured one misstep. New Delhi bristled at a portion of the November U.S.-China Joint Statement that implied greater meddling from Beijing in Indo-Pakistani relations, especially offensive considering the recent border tensions between China and India.

But since its passage under the Bush administration, the nuclear-energy agreement has been hailed as a monumental diplomatic reset. It was the first time the U.S. engaged in nuclear cooperation with New Delhi since India’s first test of a nuclear bomb, in 1974. The former nonproliferation policies toward India did nothing to deter the pursuit of nuclear weapons or lessen Indo-Pakistani tensions. Instead, they isolated India, a crucial country in the region. Both the United States and India have recently emphasized how they are “natural partners,” not least of all because they are both democratic regimes. This agreement is crucial to India’s perception of its relations with the U.S.; in fact, in 2005, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “India has made this the central issue in the new partnership developing between our countries.” By settling the details of the agreement, Obama would show the Indians good faith and prove that they are a priority.

The negotiations over specific details have taken a long time, partly because of justifiable security concerns. But much more procrastination will send the wrong message to India. On the other hand, next week is a prime opportunity for Obama to act on an American promise and also address environmental and economic communities. If he’s wise, he won’t squander it.

Today the Australian Parliament blocked a cap-and-trade bill, which has been one of the pet legislative projects of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. This is a good example of the choice lawmakers across the world are facing — whether to favor strong economic policy or strong climate-change policy. And at least in Australia, the majority of policymakers have sided with business. Leaders across the world would do well to take note of Australia’s domestic climate-change debate as they pack their bags for Copenhagen.

“The right time for an emissions trading scheme is when the rest of the world is signed up for one and that way all the economies will labor under the same emissions constraints,” said Tony Abbott, whose skepticism on climate change helped him displace opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull. He also said, “I am very happy to see the Australian Prime Minister cut a big figure on the world stage, but we aren’t going to damage the Australian economy to serve Kevin Rudd’s ego.”

Abbott is right, and the climate-change-policy advocates face one key impediment: while economic realities are undeniable, climate-change concerns remain nebulous (especially given this week’s Climategate). Nations can hardly be expected to charitably submit to a big economic disadvantage. So countries and politicians can’t be blamed for addressing their more certain interests first. Read the rest of this entry »

Holding to the prevailingly brash tenor of the international climate-change debate, the Australian prime minister equated a delay on the enactment of green policy to outright denial of climate change. In doing so, he set himself — and others — up for trouble in Copenhagen in less than a week.

Speaking in Washington yesterday and specifically referencing his country’s own climate-change policy woes, Kevin Rudd said:

Let’s just be very blunt about it. After ten years of delay on climate change, further delay equals denial on climate change. Delay on climate change equals denial on climate change. And it’s time, instead, we voted in support of this bipartisan Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, because to do so votes to act. A failure to vote, or shall I say a vote to delay on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, is a vote to deny the climate change science. A vote to delay this bipartisan Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is also to deny Australia’s ability to act on climate change.

Rudd is hardly alone in setting dangerously high expectations for concrete and speedy climate-change policy. Across the world, leaders have expressed similar sentiment, and not just on domestic climate-change policy. “We must seal a deal in Copenhagen,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Kyi-Moon. Copenhagen is “capable of delivering the turning point we all want,” said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. And in a news release issued by the White House itself, John Kerry said that “the fact that the President will attend the Copenhagen talks underscores that the Administration is putting its money where its mouth is, putting the President’s prestige on the line.”

But that’s risky rhetoric, and it puts proponents of stricter global-climate-change policy at a disadvantage.

First, an urgent and for-us-or-against-us approach like Rudd’s automatically alienates those who approach the climate-change debate with healthy skepticism or hesitancy. But it’s also hard to believe any international climate-change agreements can be reached without the help of moderates. And given the recent accounts that the scientific and academic community has suppressed climate-change debate and fogged up evidence, the demonization of skeptics should be hardly the message believers like Rudd want to convey. Further, as India and China have made abundantly clear, climate-change policy is also economic policy. This is not the time for a rushed decision, especially given the global recession.

Second, Rudd has opened the door for a public-relations problem for himself and others at Copenhagen. If anything short of action is evidence of denial, then anything less than total victory in Copenhagen must betray enormous international doubt that a climate-change problem actually exists.

Staked reputations should be the last consideration on the agenda in Copenhagen. But climate-change advocates have needlessly put themselves in a prickly position. There’s no longer much room for such outspoken leaders to hedge against the considerable conflicts they will doubtless face. And with such lofty expectations already established, they’d be foolish not to realize that the political, if not the environmental, clock is ticking. Now they have ensured that time is of the essence.

When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits the White House next week, Obama and his administration would do well to employ their much-practiced skills at making nice. New Delhi rightly fears outside meddling after this week’s U.S.-China Joint Statement, which contained a sentence widely interpreted as an affront to India:

The two sides [China and the United States] welcomed all efforts conducive to peace, stability and development in South Asia. They support the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, maintain domestic stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development, and support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan. The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.

The Joint Statement’s timing was particularly bad considering the recent India-China border dilemma. Both countries have reportedly increased troop presence near the blurry border, and the Dalai Lama’s visit to Indian territory that is still claimed by China did little to improve the relationship. China has emphasized that its “more pronounced” territorial issue is its border dispute with India. So New Delhi has good reason to be nervous about Chinese prying at Washington’s behest.

A spokesman from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs quickly commented on the Joint Statement, stating that “a third country role cannot be envisaged nor is it necessary” regarding India-Pakistan relations.

Already, both China and the United States are trying to downplay the significance of the Joint Statement reference.

China’s Foreign Ministry denied that a discussion took place between Obama and Chinese heads of state about U.S.-India nuclear cooperation, and its statement emphasized Beijing’s support of regional stability. The spokesperson added that China “values its friendly cooperation with” India and Pakistan and “hopes to see relations between the two continue … improve and grow.”

But India can hardly be blamed for frustration at the Obama administration’s mixed message. Yesterday, Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said the United States welcomes China’s participation in stabilizing the India-Pakistan region. But he also added, “We have always said, in terms of Indo-Pakistan relations, that’s really up to India and Pakistan to decide how and when and the scope of that.” Also yesterday, William Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, declared that better relations with China do not necessarily come at the cost of India.

One can only hope that the ill-considered phrasing of the Joint Statement won’t hinder next week’s discussions. No doubt Obama will want Prime Minister Singh’s support on nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and security in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention climate change. That Singh is the first head of state to visit the Obama White House in itself highlights the importance of Indian cooperation. If the mix-up is merely linguistic, it can be overcome. But if the lack of clarity lies within Obama’s foreign policy itself, expect a rocky summit. Obama’s diplomacy and eloquence will be tested as he attempts to please both India and China.

As Barack Obama takes the long flight back across the Pacific Ocean today, he would do well to reflect on his meeting with the South Korean president, a man who truly understands and exercises smart, realist diplomacy.

On paper, South Korea and the United States approach North Korea in parallel. Both want Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons, and both see the six-party talks as the most likely venue for persuasion. But in reality, Lee’s approach is much tougher; his hand is extended — but he also has a clenched fist, and he’s not afraid to use it.

Last January, Lee suspended aid to North Korea, saying he’d reinstate it only after Pyongyang denuclearized. And while Lee has often said that South Korea’s top priority is peace and reconciliation with the North (a Lincolnian goal if ever there was one), he has also been smart enough to amp up his military, especially at the border. Lee has maintained a staff that could stare down Pyongyang and has fortified his outside alliances to check North Korea. Though Lee prefers international economic sanctions against North Korea, he has also made no secret that Northern military aggression would be formidably matched.

Needless to say, this approach has perturbed the North, long accustomed to extracting Southern concession. In the last year, Pyongyang declared an “all-out confrontational policy” toward South Korea, ratcheted up provocations at sea, hurled insults, held South Koreans captive, and tested missiles. Lee has nevertheless held his ground.

Yet despite his toughness, Lee has also established opportunities for the North to cooperate and re-engage. Most recently, Lee has sought what he dubbed the Grand Bargain: if Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear program in a single, definitive step, the South will guarantee North Korea’s security and offer significant economic assistance.

In contrast, the U.S. is rewarding Northern bad behavior. Abducting American journalists won the North a photo-op visit from Clinton. Further fits of pique have earned the North attention from an envoy, Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, who is now concretely scheduled to visit Pyongyang on Dec. 8. Obama hopes bilateral discussions will return North Korea to the six-party talks. But in reality, direct talks leave the North with even more reason to avoid six-party company.

The irony in all this is that Lee’s actions represent exactly the strategy Obama has professed since his Inaugural Address. But as Lee has proved to the North, his strategy involves more than just words.

Although the results — or more accurately, the lack of results — from Obama’s China visit suggest the opposite, the $800 billion the U.S. owes to Beijing “had no impact on [Obama’s agenda in China] whatsoever,” claimed Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Froman.

“The $800 billion never came up in conversation, and the President dealt with every issue on his agenda in a very direct way and pulled no punches,” Froman said at a news conference yesterday in Beijing.

On Nov. 15, the New York Times described Obama as a “profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker” and predicted before the trip’s beginning that “Mr. Obama will be spending less time exhorting Beijing and more time reassuring it.” It was a prediction that Froman’s statement contradicts.

And a savvy prediction, indeed, as it turned out. Obama offered vague statements on human rights—admittedly, an improvement on previous silence. Both sides reaffirmed their cooperation on environmental issues, nuclear nonproliferation and security – agreements likely less solid in reality than in rhetoric. Both promised increasing student exchanges. But all these stated commonalities are mild. If anything, the U.S. lost ground, minimizing India as a first-rate Asian power and making concessions on Taiwan, as Foreign Policy’s Daniel Blumenthal noted.

So the question is one of correlation or causation: whether Obama’s conciliatory approach can be blamed on the debt alone, or whether it is instead indicative of a larger China-policy outlook.

True, as Froman said, there was no documented mention of the $800-billion debt on the White House website. (But, given its status as a quite rotund elephant, perhaps it was a topic that should have been broached at least once.)

But if Obama intends to shift U.S.-China policy altogether, expect bigger foreign policy problems soon, a dilemma articulately described by Robert Kagan and Dan Blumenthal, who wrote for the Washington Post before Obama’s visit.

Previously, the American strategy has been to simultaneously engage and balance China, Kagan and Blumenthal write. But this time, throughout the visit, Obama repeated that “we do not seek to contain China’s rise,” words that must be musical to a country historically accustomed to regional dominance and hegemony.

Blumenthal and Kagan suggest a tension between reality and a policy of strategic reassurance: The U.S. doesn’t want to diminish its Asia presence or power, but China demands parity at bare minimum. “So it will quickly become obvious,” they write, “that no one on either side feels reassured. Unfortunately, the only result will be to make American allies nervous.” As if Obama’s recent treaty forfeitures in the Czech Republic and Poland were not enough.

Either way, the tone of the visit belied a less confident America—but whether that’s by dollar or decision, we have yet to see.

President Barack Obama is losing ground on all three points of controversy in the Japan-U.S. security alliance, and his meeting today with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama did nothing to improve the U.S. position.

Japan is one of America’s most important allies, geopolitically essential for U.S.-East Asian policy and security efforts. The American presence in Japan has, among other things, been a deterrent to North Korea, a guarantor for Taiwan, and a balance for China, all of which stabilize East Asia. But this summer, Japan’s politics changed as the Democratic Party of Japan overturned the Liberal Democratic Party for the first time in 16 years. And while the new prime minister has called the U.S.-Japan alliance “the axis of Japan’s foreign policies,” his goals suggest the contrary. Up for debate is Japan’s refueling mission to Afghanistan, the status of a U.S. marine base in Okinawa, and — most important — a nearly 50-year-old security treaty between the two countries.

Let’s start with the latter, and most troubling, of these possible changes: the review of the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. The treaty establishes U.S. protection of Japan in exchange for an American military presence on Japanese soil. Revising that treaty to decrease U.S. military presence would diminish American influence, capability, and agility in the region.

And if the ruling party’s attitude toward the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Base in Okinawa is any indication, the American military presence in Japan could eventually encounter an even larger threat. The U.S. agreed in 2005 to relocate the Futenma base to a remote coastal area. But Prime Minister Hatoyama might want the base outside Japan altogether — hardly a surprise, considering that he campaigned partially on promises to reduce the U.S. military presence in Japan.

As Tokyo considers what it will do about Futenma, Obama has announced “ministerial-level meetings to discuss” the situation. But the U.S. ambassador to Japan, John Roos, said America’s “hope and expectation [is] that, at the end of that process [of review], the government will be comfortable with that [original] agreement.” He added, “The United States believes that the agreement is vital, that after considering all the alternatives this is the best agreement for the stability, the security and the strength of the alliance.”

That brings us to the Japanese Indian Ocean refueling mission, which is important more symbolically than logistically. The mission is primarily acknowledged as an act of Japanese support for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, and it has continued nearly uninterrupted since its inception in 2001, pausing only for three months when the DPJ won control of the upper house of parliament is 2008. But by all accounts, parliament will allow the mission to expire by January, despite urges to renew from Pakistan, Britain, and especially the United States. Instead, Japan will send money and vocational training to Afghanistan.

These security questions between the United States and Japan remain unresolved. So what of the Toyko meeting? Obama warned Asia against reliance on U.S. consumers and talked about nuclear disarmament and climate change. (Well, he did also get on a first-name basis with Yukio Hatoyama — duly lauded in the joint remarks.) But he accomplished nothing on the security front. East Asia remains a dangerous neighborhood, and the increasingly precarious security holdings there deserve more of Obama’s attention. This is yet another instance where American delay could really hurt.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could use a little refresher course in liberal thought.

Speaking at the Berlin Wall, Hillary Clinton used a liberal nickel word: History. But did she actually realize what she was saying? In her first sentence, she spoke of “that night 20 years ago when history broke through concrete and barbed wire and signaled a new dawn…”  She repeats herself later, referring to how “history did not end the night the wall came down; it began anew” (emphasis, in both cases, mine).

A political scholar would see this as a reference to Hegel, who coined the idea of History, as a driving force uniting past and present and pressing toward some utopian ideal. Marx and Lenin took a shining to the concept, using it as a foundation of their political theory. The notion has been latent in liberal thought ever since. You can’t be progressive unless you’re going somewhere, right?

Ms. Clinton must not have realized how loaded her word choice was. After all, History, in that very same context, was used as a justification for many of the communists’ shady or brutal dealings. (Oops.)

Better yet, President Obama accidentally articulated a conservative thought: “Human destiny is what human beings make of it,” he said in his Berlin Wall televised address.

A conservative might wish the extreme thesis and antithesis of the president and secretary of state collided here. The synthesis might be closer to the moderate policy that candidate Obama originally proclaimed. But alas, all we have is nostalgia for Woodrow Wilson, poli-sci prof-turned-president. Apparently, the Zeitgeist is political illiteracy.

Yesterday, the key elements of the congressional health-care bills were outlined by Tevi Troy, COMMENTARY contributor and former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Speaking at the Hudson Institute luncheon, he noted that all versions of the bill have this in common: new regulations for insurance companies and the health-care industry; mandated health insurance for all citizens; subsidies to help pay for that health insurance; taxes to pay for those subsidies; and cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.

The Congressional Budget Office — which has been refreshingly honest about the skyrocketing expenses — already projects that the cost of health care will soar. And much of the cost is backloaded. (Whoever is president in 2013 and 2014 could have a golden opportunity to blame his predecessor.)

True to the spirit of the age, business-friendly and consumer-friendly measures are being ignored. That’s a pity — some of them are a real bargain. Jeffrey Anderson of the Pacific Research Institute put together his “Small Bill” last month, which would accomplish many of the same goals at a fraction of the cost. Anderson puts special focus on making the health-insurance market more flexible through lifting existing regulations. Such ideas are worth examining, but it’s doubtful Congress will have the courage to give them second thought.

President Obama seeks to increase access to health care, insuring everyone. But at the same time, he wants to decrease costs. As Troy pointed out, these goals are nonaligned at best, contradictory at worst. And they’re laughable if Congress continues aspiring to micromanagement.

From its newest poll, released this week, WorldPublicOpinion.org concluded that “publics around the world show a fairly strong internationalist orientation. Most favor subordinating national interest to international law and are ready to trust the World Court to be impartial.” Respondents from 21 countries were offered two statements to choose from:

The first statement said, “Our nation should consistently follow international laws. It is wrong to violate international laws, just as it is wrong to violate laws within a country”: the second said, “If our government thinks it is not in our nation’s interest, it should not feel obliged to abide by international laws.”

On average, across all nations polled, 57% said that their country should put a higher priority on international law than national interest.

Notably, the study showed that “support for abiding by international law is strongest in China.” Seventy-four percent of mainland-Chinese respondents prioritized international law over national interest.

But in China, domestic rule of law is often disregarded (as are international-law and international agreements). In fact, the domestic law is derived from a single-party dictatorship, hardly a recipe for legitimacy. And China often turns the law against its citizens, the very people it is supposed to protect. So it’s not shocking that the Chinese want a higher power to appeal to.

The poll respondents’ may have answered differently had they only known that, for example, international law has only minimally, if at all, affected China’s behavior — or that of any state loose on internal justice. International law is tough to establish in the first place because, while justice is universal, different countries have different criteria for legality. And even if a standard were agreed upon, pleas have little effect without enforceable consequences.

And the world is a dangerous neighborhood. A state’s primary responsibility — its “national interest,” if you prefer — is the well-being of its citizens. Above everything, the state must be able to protect its citizens when they can’t protect themselves. To be sure, sometimes international law can help a country serve its citizens. For example, treaties held in good faith, as required by international law, can better trade and security. But disregarding national interest in exchange for a feebly definable, often unenforceable international law is a dangerous idea.

Predictably, Beijing has retaliated against Barack Obama’s protectionist trade policy. Earlier this week, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a preliminary ruling that puts a 36 percent tariff on U.S.-made nylon. That tariff, like the initial one, will hurt American industry and American consumers, and it could have been avoided.

If only Obama had been more … diplomatic. By upholding his campaign promises to labor unions, he backtracked on his promise to avoid protectionism. And tariffs are a surefire way to irk overseas friends.

The fray began in September. The United Steelworkers, who make the metal wiring that goes into tires, complained to the International Trade Commission that the high number of Chinese tire imports was disrupting and directly threatening the market.

The president has the final say about enforcing ITC recommendations. Unlike George W. Bush, who four times dismissed similar complaints, Obama sided with the labor union.  If only Obama had used his Nobel-winning charm to sate the labor-union leader with dinners and discussions, and if only he had worried about how provoking Beijing might impede goals like international security, global warming, and especially the economy. Instead, he ultimately conceded an internationally important decision to a powerful domestic lobby.

How? Obama enforced a 35 percent tariff on Chinese tires in addition to the existing 4 percent one, ensuring that trade hostility would escalate. And, as the Wall Street Journal reports, Americans got shot in the foot:

Since the tariff announcement on September 11, U.S. tire wholesalers have been warning that their sales prices to retailers will increase by about 15 percent on average. In some cases, the hikes are as high as 28 percent. The only reason prices haven’t risen by the full 35% tariff rate yet is that wholesalers still have some pre-tariff inventory stocks in their warehouse.

Beijing countered. It filed a complaint against the U.S. with the World Trade Organization and threatened tariffs on American poultry and car-part exports. And on Monday came the decision to impose the tariff on Nylon 6, “a synthetic filament that ends up in a wide array of products including toothbrushes, auto parts, socks and the handles of Glock handguns,” the New York Times reports. Who knows where this will end?

None of this should come as any surprise; Chinese trade retaliation has been brewing for more than a month. The irony is that this is one instance where Obama’s conciliatory international approach could have served him well.

When Barack Obama travels to China next month, it’s unlikely he’ll mention the plight of Guo Quan, a pro-democracy dissident sentenced to 10 years in a Chinese prison last Friday.

Thus far, the administration has diplomatically neglected the issue of human rights, as Joshua Muravchik noted in our July/August issue and as Jennifer Rubin addressed earlier today. By toning down the human rights/democracy talk, the White House has felt free to discuss, albeit often ineffectively, collective security, economics, and global warming — higher-priority topics from the administration’s perspective. Obama’s handling of the Dalai Lama is just one example of this shuffling of priorities. Every other president since 1991 has met with the Dalai Lama when he has visited Washington, but Obama did not, apparently to please Beijing.

If there’s one thing the president grasps, it’s how much issues like human rights and democracy rattle China. A 2007 open letter to President Hu Jintao advocating democracy cost Guo his teaching job at the Nanjing Normal University. But losing his job and income didn’t deter him. Guo continued to write and speak out against the single-party government. So he was arrested last November — as the Associated Press reported — just after he had dropped his son off at school.

Guo was charged with “subversion of state power,” punishable by up to life in prison. Guo stood firm, using even his August trial to repeat his calls for Chinese democracy. According to the Epoch Times, he said:

I have written many articles to express my views openly. My intention is to call for a system where multiple parties compete for election. I did not call for the subversion of the nation. I have never found any legal documents that state that calling for a multi-party system is subversion. … There does not exist any legal document that prohibits Chinese citizens from organizing democratic parties.

And so the sentence rolled in — 10 years.

Guo’s case is certainly not unique. China is full of imprisoned dissidents. The world is full of them.

Obama has yet to fully appreciate that Americans have always expected their foreign policy to include a moral component. In fact, the moral aspect usually complements other foreign-policy goals. Issues like human rights or democracy can’t remain unmentioned without a very pressing reason. If a president must delay addressing them, he had better provide good justification fast. Otherwise, Americans will begin to reject the policy and question the administration implementing it. (Take, for instance, how the enhanced interrogation of Guantanamo detainees itched the collective conscience. Or how even when fighting a murderous enemy, Americans want to avoid bloodshed if possible.)

Americans might forgive Obama’s reticence on human rights and democracy if his biggest policy goals are met relatively promptly — for example, if he could persuade North Korea or Iran to yield all nuclear weapons voluntarily, to moderate themselves, and to bound toward the U.S. with unclenched fists.

But so far Obama has yet to accomplish anything of significance with the policy he’s labeled “realist.” And if he doesn’t succeed in meeting his foreign-policy objectives soon, Americans will begin to grow impatient with unaddressed human-rights issues. The president would do well to consider this, especially if he has any doubt about delivering on his other foreign-policy goals during his time in China.