The Daily Orange

Let it be known throughout the land that we now have a "President of the Pacific." He is a president who believes "the Pacific rim has helped shape my view of the world."

Air Force One touched down in Beijing this week for the Obama administration's first visit to China. In the wake of a global financial crisis that seemingly brought the United States economy to its knees, the president feels the need to cozy up to the Beijing government for a country that's strapped for cash.

The New York Times uses the analogy of a "profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker." That's a pretty accurate assessment.

With the Chinese bankrolling a great deal of the economic recovery of the United States, it is the administration's role to reassure Chinese stockholders that their money is being spent on a worthy investment. The president's visit is less about diplomacy and more about being a good CEO to China's largest corporation: buying U.S. debt.

The fundamental problem with this approach is that it makes the United States seem broke in East Asia. It makes America look like it is lying on its deathbed trying to ensure that enough money is coming in to pay for its medical bills.

This is not the United States of 2009. Josef Joffe, an academic fellow affiliated with both Stanford and Harvard, recently published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that puts things in perspective. The article states "current figures show the U.S. economy to be worth $14.3 trillion, three times as much as the world's second-biggest economy, Japan's, and only slightly less than the economies of the four nearest competitors combined, Japan, China, Germany and France."

The question is why has our president decided to walk back on major issues in order to appease the Chinese.

Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama this October in fears that it would stir up controversy before his visit to Beijing. Also, the administration's most ardent critic of Chinese currency policy, treasury secretary Tim Geithner, has walked his previous claims that China was a "currency manipulator."

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