East Asia

President Obama's trip to China gave Chinese citizens a window into the views and vision of the new American leader, but it also gave the world a window into the censorship and information control still practiced every day by the Chinese Communist Party.

Obama's town-hall meeting with handpicked Shanghai students, during which he praised the free flow of information and citizens' right to open government, was not broadcast outside of Shanghai.

And Obama's interview with China's Southern Weekend newspaper, which has a reputation for pushing the boundaries and the buttons of the government censors, disappeared from both hard copies and electronic versions of the paper.

On Thursday, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000 to independently evaluate China, came out with a new report that lays out exactly how the Chinese government thinks and acts on Internet censorship and media control through its secretive but powerful "Propaganda Department."

The commission is recommending that Congress look into any agreement with American Internet companies that might give personal information to the Chinese government. The commission is also recommending that Congress investigate whether Chinese Internet censorship violates its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization.

"The propaganda system of the People's Republic of China (PRC) exercises control of information as a form of state power. It does not limit itself simply to monitoring and censoring news but instead has developed into ‘a sprawling bureaucratic establishment, extending into virtually every medium concerned with the dissemination of information,'" the report states.

The Communist leadership sends policy directives down through the Propaganda Department, which then lords over all sorts of entities, including newspapers, radio outlets, TV and film companies, and even artist and musicians' associations. Personnel appointments at all sorts of cultural and academic institutions have to be vetted through the Propaganda Department, which works hard to conceal its role.

 "The Propaganda Department is both a highly influential and highly secretive body: it is not listed on any official diagrams of the Chinese party-state structure, its street address and phone numbers are classified as state secrets, and there is no sign outside the Propaganda Department's main office complex in Beijing."

Meanwhile, the Chinese government operates what the report calls the most extensive and sophisticated Internet control system in the world. A filtering system called the "Golden Shield Project" uses technologies sold to the China by U.S. firms such as Cisco to keep out anti-government information. An estimated 30,000 internet monitors scour the Chinese Web to find violations and a loose network of independent Internet users get paid small amounts for posting content favorable to the PRC in what's known as the "Fifty Cent Party."

Media, educational, and cultural professionals in China also self-censor under fear of fines, demotion, termination, and imprisonment, the USCC reported. Foreign journalists are not outside the reach of such threats and intimidation.

Although the technologies have advanced, the Chinese government's drive to drown out outside voices is not new, said the commission's vice chairman, Larry Wortzel.

Wortzel was an official escort to then Secretary of State Madeline Albright and then First Lady Hillary Clinton to a 1995 women's conference in Beijing. "When Albright began her speech, seven provincial Chinese women's bands began playing music that sounded like cats being castrated inside a garbage can and the microphones failed," he remembered. "These are just the sorts of roadblocks that are institutionalized when you deal with the Chinese."

"The reality is, it is still an authoritarian government that still maintains tight access to information, as tight control as they are able to maintain," said commission chairwoman Carolyn Bartholomew.

Here is President Obama's full itinerary for his trip to Asia, as conveyed by Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, Jeffrey Bader, NSC senior director for East Asian affairs, and Michael Froman, deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs:

"The overarching theme is that America is a Pacific nation, it understands the importance of Asia in the 21^st Century, and it's going to be engaged in a very comprehensive way," said Rhodes.

"I think it's a common perception in the region that U.S. influence has been on the decline in the last decade while Chinese influence has been increasing," said Bader.

Thursday, November 12: Alaska

President Obama departs Washington, DC and flies to Alaska, where he will speak to soldiers at Elmendorf Air Force Base. The schedule was changed to allow Obama to attend the memorial service at Fort Hood Texas on Tuesday. Leaving Alaska Thursday evening for Tokyo.

Friday, November 13: Tokyo

Obama arrives in Tokyo and holds a bilateral meeting with new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama at 7PM, followed by a joint press conference. He'll be looking to build personal ties with the new leader, whose Democratic Party of Japan took power in a stunning August election. "This government is looking for a more equal relationship with the United States, we are prepared to move in that direction," Bader said. Don't expect any breakthroughs on the dispute over U.S. basing in Okinawa.

Saturday, November 14: Tokyo Day 2

Obama will give a speech at Suntory Hall at 10 AM, giving "his view of American engagement in Asia." Then he will have an audience with the Japanese Emperor Akihito and his wife Empress Michiko. Leaving Saturday night for Singapore.

Sunday, November 15: Singapore

First, Obama will have a bilateral meeting with Singapore president Lee Hsien Loong, followed by the APEC summit leaders' meeting. At 2PM, there will be a bilateral meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Later in the afternoon, Obama will have a multilateral meeting with all 10 leaders of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which will for the first time see American and Burmese leaders in the same room. "We're not going to let the Burmese tail wag the ASEAN dog," said Bader, saying that the previous policy of freezing out Burma has preventing U.S. interactions with ASEAN. Obama will also have a bilateral meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Leaving Sunday evening for Shanghai.

Monday, November 16: Shanghai

Obama will start the day meeting with Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng. After that, he will have a dialogue with Chinese youth and then will travel to Beijing to have dinner with Chinese president Hu Jintao. "We've have a smooth transition in the U.S.-China relationship... the relationship is off to a good start," said Bader. Issues that will get the most attention are North Korea, Iran, climate change, human rights, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. "Clean energy is something where we expect to have some accomplishments to show," Bader said.

Obama will not stop by the sight of the Shanghai Expo 2010 and no comment on whether Obama will visit his half-brother Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, who lives there.

Tuesday, November 17: Beijing

There will be a morning bilateral meeting with Hu, followed by a joint press conference. Then, Obama will tour Beijing hot spot before his state dinner. Obama will raise various human rights issues directly with Hu, Bader said, including Tibet, and that message was not undercut by Obama's decision not to meet with the Dalai Lama in Washington last month. "The president has made it clear that he is ready to meet with the Dalai Lama in the future at the appropriate time," Bader said.

Wednesday, November 18: Beijing Day 2:

Obama meets with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao  and do some more sightseeing. Also, "We do not expect that Beijing is going to produce a climate change agreement," said Froman.  That evening, Obama will leave for Seoul, South Korea.

Thursday, November 19: Seoul:

Obama will have a morning bilateral meeting with President Lee Myung-Bak, followed by a press conference.  He will then visit U.S. troops in South Korea before heading back to the United States that evening. No real expectation on movement on the U.S-Korea Free Trade Agreement. "He has noted in the past that there are some outstanding issues... he is prepared to have that conversation with the Koreans," said Froman.

The Obama administration is mounting a high-profile effort to bring senior officials to Singapore for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum beginning next week, but struggling with how much substance they will need to deliver in addition to the pageantry.

During the Bush administration, the countries of East and Southeast Asia sought American attention but often felt the Bush focus on the war on terror crowded their issues off the White House's priority list.

The Obama administration has been working furiously to reverse that impression and the APEC forum will represent the largest display of those efforts yet.

The president, four cabinet-rank officials, dozens of appointee level bureaucrats, and maybe even a few Congressmen will attend the multi-faceted session. But already, administration officials are warning that the event might not produce any actual tangible progress on issues prized by those countries, most importantly on the issue of trade.

"APEC is a non- binding, voluntary organization that operates on consensus," the State Department's Korea desk chief Kurt Tong said Tuesday, "There are real benefits to that, in the ability then to set the agenda within APEC... On the other hand, it doesn't often result in legally binding commitments in and of themselves; but rather, decisions to then take back the outcomes of APEC and implement them on a sustained and voluntary basis."

Tong laid out a number of broad themes for this year's conference: Economic recovery, "resisting protectionism," regional economic integration, as well as balanced and sustainable growth. But his message was clear: the increased U.S. attention and presence at the conference is what the administration wants to focus on and wants credit for.

"That's certainly the perception which we wish to convey," Tong said, "It's really quite a concerted and very enthusiastic embrace of the APEC meetings and APEC as an institution by the United States, as evidenced by that participation," he said.

Top Obama officials who will be attending different part of the conference, in addition to the Obama himself, are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

Although the Bush administration's delegation to last year's APEC Forum in Peru was large, in addition to the president, Condoleezza Rice was the only cabinet official to attend.

But while Southeast Asia experts give the Obama team credit for improving the optics of U.S. involvement in the region, they warn that the countries of the region will be satisfied with that for only so long before wanting to see the new American government put its money where its mouth is.

"The Obama administration gets very high marks on form and being there, which counts for a lot in Asia," said Ernie Bower, the newly minted senior advisor and Southeast Asia program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "But the wheel is about to turn, and eventually you've got to have substance behind this."

The two main things regional actors are waiting for Obama to start moving on are the idea of a free trade area for the Asia-Pacific region and commitment to finalize the stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization talks.

In both cases, the administration is debating its strategy internally now, but faces problems selling the ideas in Congress and a lack of political capital to spend on trade in the face of an already crowded and ambitious domestic agenda.

"The message to Asia is: We're here, the substance is coming, but please hold on, we have things to do at home first," Bower said.

There is at least a feeling that the conference itself could shake out some movement from the Obama administration on trade. Singapore, the host of the conference, is particularly dependent on trade and therefore is seen as needing some concession from the U.S. on that front.

One area where progress could be demonstrated would be some U.S. commitment to the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP is seen as a "coalition of the willing" on trade cooperation and a lighter, a less restrictive way to advance cooperative trade that could eventually evolve into an FTA.

The other main event in Singapore for U.S. foreign policy watchers will be the side meeting between all ten countries in the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which will for the first time include senior Burmese and American leaders in the same room.

ASEAN has been pushing for an annual meeting with the U.S., as they already have with China, but the U.S. hasn't yet agreed to that. But a big part of the Obama administration's engagement strategy in the region is a recognition that China's charm offensive has made great strides over the last decade.

"The Bush administration was not able to put the needed investment in Southeast Asia, which provided a historic opportunity for China to really step up its game," said Bower, "If the Americans want to play, we're going to have make a significant commitment to ASEAN."

For the protocol-obsessed Japanese, scheduling a cabinet-level meeting and then canceling it is a rare occurrence. But that's exactly what happened today when the State Department had to withdraw its announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would meet Friday with Japanese Foreign Minister Katusya Okada.

The diplomatic SNAFU is emblematic of the shifting ground underneath the U.S.-Japan alliance. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which took over the government in September, campaigned on a pledge to reform relations with the U.S., but now in power, they are battling internally to determine how far and wide those changes should go. The latest twist certainly won't dampen the view of those who've proclaimed a "crisis" in the U.S. relationship with Japan since the elections; a State Department official told The Cable that Clinton was still holding time in her Friday schedule, just in case Okada is able to make the trip.

Reports out of Japan suggest that Okada wanted to secure a deal on his pet issue, the Futenma air base in Okinawa, ahead of President Obama's trip to Tokyo next week. But Okada is being reined in by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who doesn't want Okada gallivanting around making policy while the issue is still a matter of intense internal discussion within the Japanese government.

And both sides are trying to recover from a tumultuous couple of weeks in the relationship following the Tokyo visit of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was seen as focusing too much on Futenma, a minor issue for the U.S. but a major emotional hot button for the Japanese.

More broadly, the center of gravity in the U.S.-Japan relationship may be shifting from the Defense Department to the State Department. While Okada might have wanted to focus on Futenma, administration sources said that Clinton's goal was much broader. She wanted to start engaging the new Japanese leadership on a larger set of strategic issues, from Afghanistan to China and everything in between.

The agenda shows the Obama administration's desire to focus less on incremental military issues such as military basing and start bringing the discussion with the new Japanese government around to larger strategic issues. But the Obama administration is unable to advance the conversation due to the ongoing foreign policy fight within the Japanese cabinet.

Hatoyama is refereeing a complex battle between various elements of his party and his cabinet over the direction of Japanese foreign policy, especially with regard to the U.S.-Japan alliance. Okada's interests may lie in making things for Hatoyama as difficult as possible, hence the (maybe) cancelled trip.

Inside the Japan policy infrastructure in Washington, the officials in charge of managing the relationship are taking a two pronged-approach. The first element of their strategy is "wait and see," letting the new DPJ government settle internal disputes and then come to the U.S. side with policy positions, negotiating stances, and the like.

The second part of the approach is "Don't blink," meaning that the U.S. interlocutors are trying to avoid overreacting to what some see as antagonistic or contradictory statements on the alliance coming out of different DPJ leaders. Also, the U.S. managers are determined not to negotiate away any of their positions while the new Japanese government is going through its growing pains.

"We're waiting for them to give us some indication of where they see the path as leading from here," said one senior U.S. official dealing with the U.S.-Japan alliance.

There is also a feeling among Obama administration Japan managers that the reports about the "crisis" in U.S.-Japan relations have been way overblown and that while a number of issues in the alliance are now up for discussion, which is new, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

"You can take any of this stuff and make a story out of it, but none of these issues are unmanageable," the official said, "The U.S. and Japan still rely on each other in a lot of fundamental ways."

The official said that there is a pretty clear path out of the current tense situation, whenever the Japanese are ready to take it. For example, on the issue of the plan for the relocation of the Futenma air base, U.S. officials believe that ultimately there is no real alternative to the current plan. Okada's idea, to combine Futenma with the Kadena air base, is seen as a non-starter inside the Obama administration.

However, there are "sweeteners" that could alleviate some concerns of Okinawa residents and allow Hatoyama and Okada to save face by claiming they got concessions before ultimately accepting the bulk of the current plan as is.

But the talks between the United States and Japan haven't gotten to that stage and probably won't by the time Obama visits Tokyo next week. Obama himself is said to be too far above the issue to negotiate such details and is likely to simply affirm the strength of the alliance, mark its 50^th anniversary, and leave the negotiations for lower officials to resume after the trip.

Traditionally, the Japan relationship inside Washington more heavily managed by the Defense Department as compared to relations with other countries. There are historical and logistical explanations for this phenomenon, but with new administrations on both sides, a change might be in store.

At the National Security Council, the Japan policy is managed by Jeffrey Bader, a former Ambassador and senior State Department official and Daniel Russel, former State Department Japan office director.

At the State Department, Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell is in charge of all things Japan, aided by Japan desk chief Kevin Maher. Campbell has been back and forth to Tokyo several times since assuming his post and is scheduled to stop in Tokyo on Thursday on his way home from Burma.

The Japan team at the Pentagon is centered around Assistant Secretary Gen. Chip Gregson, Principal Deputy Derek Mitchell, Deputy Michael Schiffer, and Japan desk officer Suzanne Bassala.

Photo: Pool/Getty Images

When the Democratic Party of Japan took power last month after decades on the sidelines, Japan watchers wondered what it meant for the United States: Would the DPJ grow too close to China? Did the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, hold anti-American views? Would Japan be less willing to help out on U.S. foreign-policy priorities, such as the war in Afghanistan?

In Japan today, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates offered some clues about the Obama administration's thinking when he rolled out his new approach to the new ruling party, showing a mixture of the traditional pressure America applies to its junior partner and a fresh willingness to let the new government change its national-security posture toward the United States. But a senior defense official said this week that there's only so far the administration is willing to go on this front.

The administration is taking a wait-and-see approach to the DPJ, which in September displaced the Liberal Democratic Party for only the second time since World War II. As the first cabinet-level official to visit Japan since the election took place, Gates's presence shows the centrality of the Defense Department in the U.S.-Japan relationship.

Gates gave support to the DPJ's announcement that it would end its refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, which has supported coalition efforts in Afghanistan for years. It's Japan's decision, Gates said, showing a departure from the strong pressure U.S. officials applied on that issue when it came up in Japanese debate in 2007.

But on the issue over the plan to relocate Marine forces at the extremely unpopular Futenma airbase in Okinawa, Gates warned that a change to the plan (which was originally signed in 1996) could disrupt a larger effort to transfer 8,000 Marines to Guam, a major desire of most Okinawa residents.

A senior U.S. defense official said just before the trip that the Okinawa base issue would surely come up in Gates's meetings with Hatoyama, new Foreign Minister Katsuyo Okada, and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa.

The official said that if Japan starts into minor adjustments to the agreement, it becomes a cascading series of other decisions that have to be made, complicating a host of issues. He also warned that the U.S. Congress might pull funding for the Guam project if there were added delays in the Futenma piece of the puzzle.

The official also said another delay in implementation of the Futenma plan would be a blow to confidence on both sides.

In contrast, on the refueling issue, Gates would come prepared to discuss other ways Japan can contribute to the mission in Afghanistan, the officials said, but won't press the new government to reverse its decision to end refueling.

Meanwhile, the new Japanese government is going through an internal struggle, with factions on the left and right of the DPJ fighting for control of the government's national- security policy. DPJ leaders have said for years that it wants Japan to have a foreign policy more independent of the United States, but skeptics have always believed that once in power, they would be compelled to continue most of the policies the old government had in place.

Hatoyama sent one of the DPJ's newer legislators, Upper House member Kuniko Tanioka, to Washington last week, where she took a survey of the foreign-policy environment and sought to gauge how viable changes in the alliance might be. Tanioka represents the more liberal wing of the DPJ, which also wants to do more to repair strains with Asia caused by controversy over Japanese hard-liners' view of World War II history.

Earlier this year she feuded with DPJ's former shadow defense minister Akihisa Nagashima over whether to deploy Japanese self defense forces to the Horn of Africa. Nagashima represents the conservative wing of the DPJ and has strong ties to Japan hands in Washington, who are largely hoping that U.S.-Japan military agreements can stay somewhere near the status quo.

Traveling with Gates is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Schiffer, formerly of the Stanley Foundation. Other key Obama Japan officials include Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the former CNAS CEO who traveled to Japan earlier this month, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Derek Mitchell, who previously worked for Campbell at CSIS.

Cambell coauthored an op-ed in the Japanese Asashi Shimbun newspaper in 2007 strongly warning Japan not to end its Afghanistan-related refueling mission at that time.

President Obama will visit Japan in November on his way to the APEC regional conference in Singapore.

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Image

The State Department unveiled its new approach to Burma yesterday, giving some details of the new U.S. policy of mixing engagement with pressure. Congress will get its chance to weigh in tomorrow, when Burma is the focus of a hearing led by engagement champion and Virginia Senator Jim Webb.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell will be the star witness at tomorrow's Senate hearing, which will also include Burmese historian Thant Myint-U and Georgetown University scholar David Steinberg, both of whom are sympathetic to Webb's position.

Webb is not waiting for anyone to endorse his engagement policy, however. He agreed to meet with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein in New York, only the latest of his many meetings with Burmese officials since his trip there last month. Webb's shuttle diplomacy between Burma, Washington, and New York has come under fire from some Burmese pro-democracy groups and from the neoconservative foreign-policy crowd.

Campbell previewed his testimony, and the administration's new Burma policy, in a State Department press conference on Monday.

"For the first time in memory, the Burmese leadership has shown an interest in engaging with the United States, and we intend to explore that interest," Campbell said, quickly noting that recently renewed ties between Burmese leaders and North Korea spoke to the urgency of engaging Burma.

Using a step-by-step approach, the United States will have a direct dialogue with Burmese military leadership, and lift sanctions only after progress is shown on the Burmese side, Campbell said. Human rights will be part of the discussions, as well as Burmese compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1874 and 1718, which severely restrict North Korea's ability to import or export weapons.

"In terms of sanctions, we will maintain existing sanctions until we see concrete progress towards reform," Campbell said, "We recognize that this will likely be a long and difficult process."

He also promised that the United States would continue to press for the release of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who apparently is open to discussing the lifting of sanctions, according to Thailand's pro-democracy Irrawaddy newspaper.

Junko Kimura/Getty Images

The Heritage Foundation is poised to announce that Dean Cheng has assumed the post of research fellow for Chinese political and security affairs, filling the void left by the recently departed China hawk John Tkacik.

Since late last year, the Asia policy community has been aflutter with RUMINT (rumor-based intelligence for you non-military types) about the circumstances surrounding Tkacik's departure. Sources of varying degrees of credibility have speculated that Heritage might have received pressure from Taiwan's Kuomintang government to dump Tkacik due to the scholar's support of the government of Democratic Progressive Party bomb-thrower Chen Shui-ban, or simply that Heritage wanted to back away from Tkacik's famously aggressive stance toward Beijing.

In an interview with The Cable, Tkacik rejected the assertion that there was any direct financial or political motive in Heritage's changing of its China scholars.

"It's not black and white, there are a whole matrix of factors that go into a decision like that," he said, "I left on good terms, but I think I was going in directions that were not the same directions as the organization."

Tkacik said he left Heritage to concentrate on other projects, including two books he's working on: one that explores the history of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship and another that would be a layman's introduction to Chinese poetry.

"Dean is a great guy," Tkacik added, "He's one of the true military and strategic experts in the China field."

Cheng has been working as a senior Asia analyst for CNA, a nonprofit think tank, and has also done work for Science Applications International Corp. At Heritage, he will be tasked with examining China's military and foreign policy, especially with regard to the United States.

"He brings a depth and credibility on China political security issues that will make Heritage the go-to place on a broad spectrum of China-related issues," Walter Lohman, director of Heritage's Asian Studies Center, said in the soon- to-be-released announcement.

Sarah Palin made huge news when she spoke yesterday to a group of Hong Kong business types with former McCain campaign foreign-policy guru Randy Scheunemann in tow. The speech included some of the most critical statements about the Chinese Communist Party by an American political leader in years.

Now The Cable brings you previously unreleased extended excerpts of Palin's speech, which give a window into the foreign-policy persona she is crafting in anticipation of 2012.

Palin on the post Cold War international order:

Later this year, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - an event that changed not just Europe but the entire world.  In a matter of months, millions of people in formerly captive nations were freed to pursue their individual and national ambitions.

The competition that defined the post World War II era was suddenly over. What was once called "the free world" had so much to celebrate - the peaceful end to a great power rivalry and the liberation of so many from tyranny's grip.  

Some, you could say, took the celebration too far.  Many spoke of a "peace dividend," of the need to focus on domestic issues and spend less time, attention and money on endeavors overseas.  Many saw a peaceful future, where globalization would break down borders and lead to greater global prosperity. Some argued that state sovereignty would fade - like that was a good thing? -- , that new non-governmental actors and old international institutions would become dominant in the new world order.

As we all know, that did not happen.

On the so-called Global War on Terror:

This war - and that is what it is, a war - is not, as some have said, a clash of civilizations.  We are not at war with Islam. This is a war WITHIN Islam, where a small minority of violent killers seeks to impose their view on the vast majority of Muslims who want the same things all of us want: economic opportunity, education, and the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families.  The reality is that al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed scores of innocent Muslim men, women and children.  

On the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan:

We can win in Afghanistan by helping the Afghans build a stable representative state able to defend itself.  And we must do what it takes to prevail.  The stakes are very high.

On the U.S. defense budget and federal spending:

We need to go back to fiscal discipline and unfortunately that has not been the view of the current Administration.  They're spending everywhere and with disregard for deficits and debts and our future economic competitiveness. Though we are engaged in two wars and face a diverse array of threats, it is the DEFENSE budget that has seen significant program cuts and has actually been reduced from current levels!

First, the Defense Department received only ½ of 1 % of the nearly trillion dollar Stimulus Package funding -- even though many military projects fit the definition of "shovel-ready."  In this Administration's first defense budget request for 2010, important programs were reduced or cancelled.  As the threat of ballistic missiles from countries like North Korea and Iran grow, missile defense was slashed.

On the Chinese military:

China has some 1000 missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer believes Taiwan poses a military threat to Beijing. Those same Chinese forces make our friends in Japan and Australia nervous. China provides support for some of the world's most questionable regimes from Sudan to Burma to Zimbabwe. China's military buildup raises concerns from Delhi to Tokyo because it has taken place in the absence of any discernable external threat.  

China, along with Russia, has repeatedly undermined efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran for its defiance of the international community in pursuing its nuclear program.  The Chinese food and product safety record has raised alarms from East Asia and Europe to the United States.  And, domestic incidents of unrest -- from the protests of Uighurs and Tibetans, to Chinese workers throughout the country rightfully make us nervous.  

On democracy and human rights:

I am not talking about some U.S.-led "democracy crusade."  We cannot impose our values on other counties.  Nor should we seek to.  But the ideas of freedom, liberty and respect for human rights are not U.S. ideas, they are much more than that.