Lame duck swims to Asia

[Geee]

Politico:

If President Barack Obama expects to escape the spate of brutal post-election news by traveling 6,000 miles and 12 time zones to Asia, he’s in for a surprise.

 

Regional players are taking stock of whether the U.S. president once seen as a global rock star will now have diminished heft on the world stage, and some are delivering their verdict well ahead of his arrival Monday for an eight-day trip to China, Burma and Australia.

 

Global Times, an English-language newspaper published by China’s state-run People’s Daily, has carried two withering editorials in recent days.

 

 

“The lame-duck president will be further crippled” in the wake of a GOP victory, the newspaper warned in one before the voting was complete. “He has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. US society has grown tired of his banality.”

 

“This will be the most recent manifestation of America’s weakness and they will figure that into their deliberation,” said Jon Hunstman, a Republican who served as U.S. Ambassador to China under Obama and pointed to Chinese adeptness at sizing up power. “They will see it through that prism and consider whether this president still has the swat to actually get anything done.”

 

Official Chinese spokespeople, however, have been more restrained in their response.

 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei declined to comment on “America’s domestic affairs,” but said that China is hopeful the election outcome won’t undermine relations between the two superpowers.