The diplomacy of deferenc
- President Barack Obama bows while being greeted by Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Nov. 14. Photo: AP
BEIJING — Greeting the Japanese emperor at Tokyo’s Imperial Palace last weekend, President Barack Obama bowed so low that he was looking straight at the stone floor. The next day, Obama shook hands with the prime minister of repressive Myanmar during a group meeting. The day after that, the president held a “town hall” with Chinese university students who had been selected by the regime.
The images from the president's journey through Asia carried a potent symbolism that has riled critics back home. One conservative website called the episodes “Obamateurism.” Former Vice President Dick Cheney told POLITICO that Obama was advertising “weakness.”
But White House aides say the approach is deliberate — part of Obama’s determination to deliver on his campaign promise of directly engaging friends and enemies alike, giving America a less belligerent posture abroad.
“I think it's very important for the United States not to assume that what is good for us is automatically good for somebody else,” Obama told the students at the town hall, in Shanghai. “And we have to have some modesty about our attitudes towards other countries.”
President George W. Bush was accused of practicing “cowboy diplomacy,” with an emphasis on American power and self-interest that came off to many people as jingoism.
On his maiden Asia swing, Obama has made a vivid display of his own trademark style — the diplomacy of deference...
