He raised U.S. arms sales to Taiwan almost in a perfunctory way. He, like others, downplayed China’s strength and economic success, saying that while China’s economy was the second largest in the world, GDP per person was one-tenth that of the United States, and that the gap between rural and urban China was even bigger. Liang had commented that China’s military was two to three decades behind “advanced” militaries—meaning the United States and our strongest NATO allies—and was “not a military threat to the world.”
Despite President Hu’s desire to have my visit be picture-perfect to pave the way for his state visit to Washington just a little over a week later, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, the PLA nearly wrecked both trips. Just hours before my meeting with Hu, the PLA rolled out for the first time publicly its new J-20 stealth fighter. Photos of the plane hit the Chinese press about two hours before my session with Hu. As one of my China policy experts insightfully expressed it, “This is about as big a ‘fuck you’ as you can get.” There was some talk among my team about canceling the rest of the visit or part of it, or ignoring the insult. U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, seconded by my senior China policy expert, Michael Schiffer, came up with the best approach: as I had been embarrassed, I should turn the tables and embarrass the PLA.
I met with President Hu midafternoon on January 11 in the Great Hall of the People, in a reception room roughly the size of Grand Central Station. The two of us sat at the head of a horseshoe-shaped arrangement of overstuffed easy chairs in which we and our colleagues wallowed, a setting that required us both to use microphones. After Hu’s opening pleasantries and recital of standard Chinese talking points, I noted to Hu that everyone had been focused on ensuring as positive an atmosphere as possible for his visit to Washington, but I had noticed in the Chinese media a few hours earlier reports of the rollout of the PLA’s new stealth fighter. I told Hu the U.S. press was trying to figure out the significance of this test in the middle of my visit and just before his trip. I said I was worried that the U.S. press would present the test as a negative development in the relationship and asked the president of China to advise me on how to explain the test to them. Hu laughed nervously as he turned to his military aides and asked, Is this true? A furious discussion broke out on the Chinese side involving Liang, his deputy General Ma, and others. The Chinese civilians in the room had known nothing about the test. A Chinese admiral seated farthest from Hu passed word back up the line that it had been a “scientific research project.” After several minutes of chatter on the Chinese side, Hu adamantly assured me that the rollout had been a “previously scheduled scientific test” having nothing at all to do with my visit—or his. I suspected the PLA would have given me a different explanation. That the PLA would pull such a politically portentous stunt without telling Hu in advance was worrying, to say the least.
Central Military Commission vice chairman General Xu (earlier my guest at Lincoln’s cottage in Washington) hosted a dinner for me in the same guesthouse where Hu had hosted President Obama, with several of China’s most famous singers as the entertainment. Baijiu, Chinese “white lightning,” flowed as toasts were made. Both Xu’s and Liang’s wives were present, as was Becky, and decorum was largely maintained. Our entire crew visited the Great Wall the next day, the highway shut down by troops the entire distance for my motorcade. One of the traveling press bought a small backpack at a gift shop near the wall with Obama’s picture on it dressed in a Mao jacket and wearing a PLA hat. I persuaded the journalist to sell it to me, and I presented it to the president upon my return. I told him it would validate what a lot of Republicans already thought about him. He laughed.
Hu’s visit to the United States began a week later and went off without a hitch. But high-level cordiality and professions of cooperation cannot mask the reality that the U.S.-Chinese relationship faces serious challenges. China continues to invest a growing portion of its budget in new military capabilities and technologies—including highly accurate antiship cruise and ballistic missiles, diesel and nuclear submarines, antisatellite capabilities, and stealth fighters—designed to keep U.S. air and naval assets well east of the South China Sea and Taiwan. They are building a navy that, while far inferior to that of the United States globally, could be a serious problem for us in Northeast and Southeast Asia. Beijing learned from the Soviet experience, I believe, and has no intention of matching us ship for ship, tank for tank, missile for missile, and thereby draining China financially in a no-holds-barred arms race with the United States. They are investing selectively in capabilities that target our vulnerabilities, not our strengths. The Chinese are becoming increasingly aggressive in asserting territorial claims over much of the South China Sea and islands close to Japan. And they continue to challenge U.S. air and naval surveillance missions, even though we operate in international airspace and waters. Their cyber-attack capabilities are advanced and getting better, and they are targeting both our military and our civilian networks every day. All in all, this is a relationship that will require careful and skilled long-term management by leaders on both sides if we are to sustain our partnership in some areas (for example, economic) and keep competition in other areas from becoming adversarial. A robust American air and naval presence in the Pacific, especially in East Asia, will continue to be necessary to reassure our friends and allies but also to ensure peaceful resolution of disputes.
When I arrived in Russia for the last time as secretary a day after the bombing in Libya started, I began in St. Petersburg, capital city of the Russian Empire from its founding on the Baltic Sea by Emperor Peter the Great in 1703 until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. First stop was the Russian Naval Museum, to give a lecture to about 200 middle-grade Russian naval officers. The atmosphere was barely more welcoming than for my speech at the Russian General Staff Academy in October 2007; no applause when I was introduced and tepid applause when I finished. This time, though, the questions were not confrontational but curious. What did we see as the greatest threat? Was I streamlining the U.S. Defense Department? What role would the Navy play in U.S. security? What about joint operations and joint combat training with Russia? How about Russian naval officers attending U.S. military institutions? What was the most significant event for me as secretary? I left the session somewhat heartened by the prospect for future U.S.-Russian military exchanges and cooperation.
I then motorcaded to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of the city, where I had been invited to fire the “noon cannon,” set off daily since the days of Peter the Great. Following the ceremony, I visited the Peter and Paul Cathedral on the grounds, burial place of most Russian tsars. As someone who had studied Russian history all my adult life, seeing these sights was a pleasure that had been denied me for decades because of the Cold War and my CIA career.
The next day, March 22, I flew to Moscow to meet with Defense Minister Serdyukov and President Medvedev. Putin was traveling. Libya was on everyone’s mind, especially in light of an unusual public difference of opinion between Putin and Medvedev. The day before, Putin had told some factory workers in central Russia that the UN resolution on Libya “reminds me of a medieval call for a crusade.” Medvedev had taken issue with that statement: “Under no circumstances is it acceptable to use expressions that essentially lead to a clash of civilizations—such as ‘crusade’ and so on.” He also defended his decision not to veto the Security Council resolution.