Like many Americans, my first real look at China came in 1972, when President Richard Nixon made his historic trip across the Pacific. Bill and I were law students without a television, so we went out and rented a portable set with rabbit ears. We lugged it back to our apartment and tuned in every night to watch scenes of a country that had been blocked from view for our entire lives. I was riveted and proud of what America accomplished during what President Nixon called “the week that changed the world.”
Looking back, it’s clear that both sides had taken enormous risks. They were venturing into the unknown, during the height of the Cold War no less. There could be serious political consequences at home for leaders on both sides for appearing weak or, in our case, “soft on Communism.” But the men who negotiated the trip, Henry Kissinger for the United States and Zhou Enlai for China, and the leaders they represented, calculated that the potential benefits outweighed the risks. (I have joked with Henry that he was lucky there were no smartphones or social media when he made his first secret trip to Beijing. Imagine if a Secretary tried to do that today.) We do similar calculations today when we deal with nations whose policies we disagree with but whose cooperation we need, or when we want to avoid letting disagreements and competition slip into conflict.
The U.S.-China relationship is still full of challenges. We are two large, complex nations with profoundly different histories, political systems, and outlooks, whose economies and futures have become deeply entwined. This isn’t a relationship that fits neatly into categories like friend or rival, and it may never. We are sailing in uncharted waters. Staying on course and avoiding the shoals and whirlpools requires both a true compass and the flexibility to make frequent course corrections, including sometimes painful trade-offs. If we push too hard on one front, we may jeopardize another. By the same token, if we are too quick to compromise or accommodate, we may invite aggression. With all these elements to consider, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that, across the divide, our counterparts have their own pressures and imperatives. The more both sides follow the example of those intrepid early diplomats to bridge the gaps in understanding and interests, the better chance we will have of making progress.
My first trip to China, in 1995, was among the most memorable of my life. The Fourth World Conference on Women, at which I declared, “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights,” was a profound experience for me. I felt the heavy hand of Chinese censorship when the government blocked the broadcast of my speech, both throughout the conference center and on official television and radio. Most of my speech was about women’s rights, but I also sent a message to the Chinese authorities, who had banished the events for civil society activists to a separate site in Huairou, a full hour’s drive outside Beijing, and barred women from Tibet and Taiwan from attending at all. “Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly,” I declared from the podium. “It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions.” Those were more pointed words than American diplomats usually used, especially on Chinese soil, and some in the U.S. government had urged me to give a different speech or not speak at all. But I thought it was important to stand up for democratic values and human rights in a place where they were seriously threatened.
In June 1998, I returned to China for a longer stay. Chelsea and my mom accompanied Bill and me on an official state visit. The Chinese requested a formal arrival ceremony in Tiananmen Square, where tanks had crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in June 1989. Bill thought about refusing the request, so as not to appear to endorse or ignore that ugly history, but in the end he decided that his human rights message might get through more in China if he acted like a respectful guest. The Chinese, in turn, surprised us by permitting the uncensored broadcast of Bill’s news conference with President Jiang Zemin, during which they had an extended exchange about human rights, including the taboo topic of Tibet. They also broadcast Bill’s speech to students at Beijing University as well, in which he stressed that “true freedom includes more than economic freedom.”
I came home from the trip convinced that if China over time embraces reform and modernization, it could become a constructive world power and an important partner for the United States. But it was not going to be easy, and America would have to be smart and vigilant in how we engaged this growing nation.
I returned to China as Secretary in February 2009 with the goal of building a relationship durable enough to weather the inevitable disputes and crises that would arise. I also wanted to embed the China relationship in our broader Asia strategy, engaging Beijing in the region’s multilateral institutions in ways that would encourage it to work with its neighbors according to agreed-upon rules. At the same time, I wanted China to know that it was not the sole focus of our attention in Asia. We would not sacrifice our values or our traditional allies in order to win better terms with China. Despite its impressive economic growth and advances in military capacity, it had not yet come close to surpassing the United States as the most powerful nation in the Asia-Pacific. We were prepared to engage from a position of strength.
Before arriving in Beijing from South Korea, I sat down to talk with our traveling press corps. I told them I would emphasize cooperation on the global economic crisis, climate change, and security issues, such as North Korea and Afghanistan. After listing the agenda highlights, I mentioned that the sensitive issues of Taiwan, Tibet, and human rights would also be on the table and said, “We pretty much know what they’re going to say.”
It was true, of course. American diplomats had been raising these issues for years, and the Chinese were quite predictable in their responses. I remembered a heated discussion I had with former President Jiang about China’s treatment of Tibet during the state dinner Bill and I hosted for him at the White House in October 1997. I had met previously with the Dalai Lama to discuss the Tibetans’ plight, and I asked President Jiang to explain China’s repression. “The Chinese are the liberators of the Tibetan people. I have read the histories in our libraries, and I know Tibetans are better off now than they were before,” he replied. “But what about their traditions and the right to practice their religion as they choose?” I persisted. He forcefully insisted that Tibet was a part of China and demanded to know why Americans advocated for those “necromancers.” Tibetans “were victims of religion. They are now freed from feudalism,” he declared.
So I had no illusions about what Chinese officials would be saying to me when I raised these issues again. I also made the obvious point that, given the breadth and complexity of our relationship with China, our profound differences on human rights could not exclude engagement on all other issues. We had to be able to stand up forcefully for dissidents while also seeking cooperation on the economy, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. This had been our approach since Nixon went to China. Nonetheless my comments were widely interpreted to mean that human rights would not be a priority for the Obama Administration and that the Chinese could safely ignore them. Nothing could have been further from reality, as future events showed. Still, it was a valuable lesson: now that I was America’s chief diplomat, every utterance would be subjected to a whole new level of scrutiny, and even seemingly self-evident observations could set off a feeding frenzy in the media.
It had been more than a decade since my previous visit, and driving through Beijing was like watching a movie in fast-forward. Where once only a handful of high-rise buildings were visible, now the sky was dominated by the gleaming new Olympic complex and endless corporate towers. Streets that had once been full of Flying Pigeon bicycles were now jammed with cars.
While in Beijing I met with a group of women activists, some of whom I had gotten to know in 1998. At that time Secretary Albright and I had crowded into a cramped legal aid office to hear about their efforts to win rights for women to own property, have a say in marriage and divorce, and be treated as equal citizens. More than ten years later the size of the group and the scope of their collective efforts had grown. Now there were activists working not just for women’s legal rights but for their environmental, health, and economic rights as well.
One of them was Dr. Gao Yaojie, a diminutive eighty-two-year-old who had been harassed by the government for speaking out about AIDS in China and exposing a tainted blood scandal. When we first met I noticed her tiny feet—they had been bound—and was amazed by her story. She had persevered through civil war, the Cultural Revolution, house arrest, and forced family separation, and she never shied away from her commitment to help as many of her fellow citizens as possible protect themselves against AIDS.
In 2007, I interceded with President Hu Jintao to allow Dr. Gao to come to Washington to receive an award after local officials tried to prevent her from traveling. Here we were two years later, and she was still facing government pressure. Nonetheless she told me she planned to continue advocating for transparency and accountability. “I am already 82. I am not going to live that much longer,” she said. “This is an important issue. I am not afraid.” Not long after my visit, Dr. Gao was forced to leave China. She now lives in New York City, where she continues to write and speak out about AIDS in China.
Much of my time on this first visit to Beijing as Secretary was filled with get-to-know-you sessions with senior Chinese officials. I met for lunch with State Councilor Dai Bingguo at the serene and traditional Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where President Nixon stayed on his famous visit and where we had stayed during our 1998 trip. Dai, along with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, would become my primary counterparts in the Chinese government. (In the Chinese system, a State Councilor is more senior than a Minister, ranking just below a Vice Premier in the hierarchy.)
A career diplomat, Dai was close to President Hu and adept at maneuvering the internal politics of the Chinese power structure. He was proud of his reputation as a man from the provinces who had risen to prominence. Small and compact, he stayed vigorous and healthy despite his advancing years by doing regular exercise and taking long walks, which he highly recommended to me. He was comfortable discussing history and philosophy as well as current events. Henry Kissinger had told me how highly he valued his relationship with Dai, whom he found to be one of the most fascinating and open-minded Chinese officials he had ever encountered. Dai thought about the grand sweep of history, and he approvingly repeated the proverb I had used in my Asia Society speech: “When you are in a common boat, cross the river peacefully together.” When I told him that I thought the United States and China had to write a new answer to the age-old question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet, he enthusiastically agreed, and frequently repeated my formulation. Throughout history, that scenario had often led to conflict, so it was our job to chart a course that avoided that end by keeping competition within acceptable boundaries and promoting as much cooperation as possible.
Dai and I hit it off right away, and we talked often over the years. Sometimes I’d be subjected to long lectures about everything the United States was doing wrong in Asia, laced with sarcasm but always delivered with a smile. At other times the two of us talked deeply and personally about the need to put the U.S.-China relationship on a sound footing for the sake of future generations. On one of my early visits to Beijing, Dai presented me with thoughtful personal gifts for Chelsea and my mother, which was above and beyond the normal diplomatic protocol. The next time he came to Washington, I reciprocated with a gift for his only granddaughter, which seemed to please him very much. In an early meeting, he had pulled out a small photograph of the baby girl and showed it to me, saying, “This is what we’re in it for.” That sentiment struck a chord with me. It was concern for the welfare of children that got me into public service in the first place. As Secretary of State I had the chance to make the world a little safer and life a little better for children in America and across the globe, including in China. I viewed it as the opportunity and the responsibility of a lifetime. That Dai shared my passion became the basis of an enduring bond between us.
Foreign Minister Yang had risen up the ranks of the diplomatic corps, starting as an interpreter. His superb command of English enabled us to have long, sometimes spirited conversations during our many meetings and phone calls. He rarely dropped his careful diplomatic persona, but I could occasionally glimpse the real person behind it. Once he told me that, as a child growing up in Shanghai, he sat in an unheated classroom, shivering, his hands too cold to hold a pen. His journey from the freezing schoolhouse all the way to the Foreign Ministry was a source of his great personal pride in China’s progress. He was an unapologetic nationalist, and we had our share of tense exchanges, especially about difficult topics like the South China Sea, North Korea, and territorial disputes with Japan.
Late one night, in one of our last discussions in 2012, Yang started waxing on about China’s many superlative achievements, including its athletic dominance. It was just about a month after the London Olympics, and I gently pointed out that America, in fact, had won the most medals of any country. Yang, in turn, chalked up China’s “decline in fortunes” at the Olympics to the absence of the injured basketball star Yao Ming. He also joked that there should be a “diplomacy Olympics” with events like “miles traveled”; that would net the United States at least one more medal.
In my first conversation with Yang in February 2009, he brought up a topic I didn’t expect that was clearly bothering him. The Chinese were preparing to host a major international exposition in May 2010, like the world’s fairs of an earlier era. Every country in the world was responsible for building a pavilion on the exposition grounds to showcase their national culture and traditions. Only two nations were failing to participate, Yang told me: tiny Andorra and the United States. The Chinese saw that as a sign of disrespect, and also of American decline. I was surprised to learn that we weren’t pulling our weight and pledged to Yang that I would make sure the United States was well represented.
I soon discovered that the USA Pavilion was out of money, way behind schedule, and unlikely ever to be completed unless things changed dramatically. This was not a good way to project American power and values in Asia. So I made it a personal priority to get our pavilion built, which meant raising money and support from the private sector in record time.
We pulled it off, and in May 2010, I joined millions of other visitors from around the world to tour the expo. The USA Pavilion showcased American products and stories that illustrated some of our most cherished national values: perseverance, innovation, and diversity. What struck me most were the American students who volunteered to serve as hosts and guides. They represented the full spectrum of the American people, from every walk of life and background, and they all spoke Mandarin. Many Chinese visitors were stunned to hear Americans speak their language so enthusiastically. They stopped to talk, asked questions, told jokes, and swapped stories. It was another reminder that personal contacts can do as much or more for the U.S.-China relationship than most diplomatic encounters or choreographed summits.
After my discussions with Dai and Yang on that February 2009 visit, I had the opportunity to meet separately with President Hu and Premier Wen. It was the first of at least a dozen encounters over the years. The senior leaders were more scripted than Dai or Yang and less comfortable in a freewheeling discussion. The higher you went up the chain, the higher the premium the Chinese put on predictability, formality, and respectful decorum. They didn’t want any surprises. Appearances mattered. With me, they were careful and polite, even a little wary. They were studying me, just as I was studying them.
Hu was gracious, expressing his appreciation for my decision to make such an early visit to China. He was the most powerful man in China, but he lacked the personal authority of predecessors such as Deng Xiaoping or Jiang Zemin. Hu seemed to me more like an aloof chairman of the board than a hands-on CEO. How in control he really was of the entire sprawling Communist Party apparatus was an open question, especially when it came to the military.
“Grandpa Wen,” as the Premier (the #2 official) was called, worked hard to present a kindly, soft-spoken image to China and the world. But in private he could be quite pointed, especially when he was arguing that the United States was responsible for the global financial crisis or when he brushed aside criticism of China’s policies. He was never combative, but he was more cutting than his public persona might have suggested.
In my early meetings with these leaders, I proposed making the U.S.-China economic dialogue started by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson a strategic dialogue as well, to cover a much wider range of issues and bring together more experts and officials from across our two governments. This wasn’t an excuse for the State Department to elbow into the conversation or to set up a high-profile debating society. I knew that regular talks, in essence a high-level steering committee for the relationship, would expand our cooperation into new areas and build greater trust and resiliency. Policymakers on both sides would get to know each other and become used to working together. Open lines of communication would reduce the likelihood that a misunderstanding would escalate tensions. Future disputes would be less likely to derail everything else we needed to do together.
I had discussed this idea with Hank Paulson’s successor at Treasury, Tim Geithner, over lunch at the State Department in early February 2009. I had gotten to know and like Tim when he was President of the New York Federal Reserve. He had extensive experience in Asia and even spoke a little Mandarin, making him an ideal partner in our engagement with China. To his credit, Tim did not see my proposal for the expanded dialogue as an intrusion on Treasury’s turf—turf, of course, being a precious Washington commodity. He saw it as I did: as a chance to combine our departments’ strengths, especially at a time when the global financial crisis was blurring the line between economics and security more than ever. If the Chinese agreed, Tim and I would chair the new combined dialogue together.
In Beijing I was prepared for reluctance, even rejection. After all, the Chinese were not eager to discuss sensitive political topics. Yet it turned out they were also eager for more high-level contact with the United States, and were seeking what President Hu Jintao called a “positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship.” In time our Strategic and Economic Dialogue would become a model we replicated with emerging powers around the world, from India to South Africa and Brazil.
For decades, the guiding doctrine of Chinese foreign policy was Deng Xiaoping’s counsel, “Coolly observe, calmly deal with things, hold your position, hide your capacities, bide your time, accomplish things where possible.” Deng, who ruled China after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, believed that China was not yet strong enough to assert itself on the world stage, and his “hide and bide” strategy helped avoid conflict with neighbors as China’s economy took off. Bill and I met Deng briefly on his historic tour of the United States in 1979. I had never met a Chinese leader before and closely observed him as he casually interacted with the American guests at a reception and dinner at the Georgia Governor’s Mansion. He was engaging and made an excellent impression, both personally and in his willingness to begin opening his country up to reform.
By 2009, however, some officials in China, especially in the military, chafed at this posture of restraint. They thought that the United States, long the most powerful nation in the Asia-Pacific, was receding from the region but still determined to block China’s rise as a great power in its own right. It was, they thought, time for a more assertive approach. They were emboldened by the financial crisis of 2008 that weakened the U.S. economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that sapped American attention and resources, and a rising current of nationalism among the Chinese people. And so China started making more aggressive moves in Asia, testing how hard it could push.
In November 2009, President Obama received a noticeably lukewarm reception during his visit to Beijing. The Chinese insisted on stage-managing most of his appearances, refused to give any ground on issues such as human rights or currency valuation, and offered pointed lectures on America’s budget problems. The New York Times described the joint press conference between President Obama and President Hu as “stilted”—so much so that it was parodied on Saturday Night Live. Many observers wondered whether we were seeing a new phase in the relationship, with an ascendant and assertive China no longer hiding its resources and enhanced military capabilities, moving away from “hide and bide” and toward “show and tell.”
The most dramatic arena for Chinese assertiveness was at sea. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan all have coasts on the South and East China Seas. For generations they have jousted over competing territorial claims in the area, over strings of reefs, rocks, outcroppings, and mostly uninhabited islands. In the south, China and Vietnam clashed violently over contested islands in the 1970s and 1980s. China tangled with the Philippines in the 1990s over other islands. In the East China Sea, a chain of eight uninhabited islands, known as the Senkakus to the Japanese and the Diaoyus to the Chinese, have been the subject of a long and heated dispute that, as of 2014, continues to simmer and threatens to boil over at any time. In November 2013, China declared an “air defense identification zone” over much of the East China Sea, including the disputed islands, and demanded that all international air traffic adhere to its regulations. The United States and our allies refused to recognize this move and continued to fly military planes through what we still consider international airspace.
These conflicts may not be new, but the stakes have risen. As Asia’s economy has grown, so has the trade flowing through the region. At least half the world’s merchant tonnage passes through the South China Sea, including many shipments headed to or from the United States. Discoveries of new offshore energy reserves and surrounding fisheries have made the waters around otherwise unremarkable clumps of rocks into potential treasure troves. Old rivalries heightened by the prospect of new riches make for a combustible recipe.
Throughout 2009 and 2010 China’s neighbors watched with increasing alarm as Beijing accelerated a naval buildup and asserted its claim to wide swaths of water, islands, and energy reserves. These actions were the opposite of what former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State (and later president of the World Bank) Robert Zoellick had hoped for when he urged China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in a much-noted speech in 2005. Instead China was becoming what I called a “selective stakeholder,” picking and choosing when to act like a responsible great power and when to assert the right to impose its will on its smaller neighbors.
In March 2009, just two months into the Obama Administration, five Chinese ships confronted a lightly armed U.S. naval vessel, the Impeccable, about seventy-five miles from the Chinese island province of Hainan. The Chinese demanded that the Americans leave what they claimed were exclusive territorial waters. The crew of the Impeccable responded that they were in international waters and had a right to free navigation. Chinese sailors threw pieces of wood in the water to block the ship’s path. The Americans responded by spraying a fire hose at the Chinese, some of whom stripped to their underwear after being doused. The scene could almost be considered comical if it didn’t represent a potentially dangerous confrontation. Over the next two years, similar standoffs at sea between China and Japan, China and Vietnam, and China and the Philippines threatened to spiral out of control. Something had to be done.
China prefers to resolve territorial disputes with its neighbors bilaterally, or one-on-one, because in those situations its relative power is greater. In multilateral settings where smaller nations could band together, its sway decreased. Not surprisingly, most of the rest of the region preferred the multilateral approach. They believed there were too many overlapping claims and interests to try to settle them in a patchwork, one-off fashion. Getting all the relevant players in the same room and giving them all a chance to express their views—especially the smaller countries—was the best way to move toward a comprehensive solution.
I agreed with this approach. The United States has no territorial claims in the South or East China Seas, we don’t take sides in such disputes, and we oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo. We have an abiding interest in protecting freedom of navigation, maritime commerce, and international law. And we have treaty obligations to support Japan and the Philippines.
My concerns escalated when I was in Beijing for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in May 2010 and for the first time heard Chinese leaders describe the country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea as a “core interest” alongside traditional hot-button topics like Taiwan and Tibet. They warned that China would not tolerate outside interference. Later the meetings were disrupted when a Chinese admiral stood up and launched into an angry rant accusing the United States of trying to encircle China and suppress its rise. This was highly unusual in a carefully choreographed summit, and—although I assumed the admiral had gotten at least a tacit go-ahead from his military and party bosses—it appeared that some of the Chinese diplomats were as surprised as I was.
The confrontations in the South China Sea in the first two years of the Obama Administration reinforced my belief that our strategy in Asia must include a significant effort to upgrade the region’s multilateral institutions. The available venues just weren’t effective enough for resolving disputes between nations or mobilizing action. For the smaller nations, it could feel like the Wild West: a frontier without the rule of law, where the weak were at the mercy of the strong. Our goal was not just to help defuse flash points like the South or East China Sea but also to nurture an international system of rules and organizations in the Asia-Pacific that could help avoid future conflicts and bring some order and long-term stability to the region—something that began to approximate what Europe had built.
On the flight home from the talks in Beijing, I took stock with my team. I thought China had overplayed its hand. Instead of using the period of our perceived absence and the economic crisis to cement good relations with its neighbors, it had become more aggressive toward them, and that shift had unnerved the rest of the region. When times are good with few threats to security or prosperity, nations are less likely to see the appeal of expensive defense alliances, strong international rules and norms, and robust multilateral institutions. But when conflict unsettles the status quo, these agreements and protections become a lot more attractive, especially to smaller nations.
Perhaps there was an opportunity to be found amid all these troubling developments. One presented itself just two months later at an ASEAN regional forum in Vietnam. I touched down in Hanoi on July 22, 2010, and went to a lunch marking the fifteenth anniversary of normalized diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States.
I vividly remembered the day in July 1995 when Bill made the historic announcement in the East Room of the White House, flanked by Vietnam veterans, including Senators John Kerry and John McCain. It was the beginning of a new era—healing old wounds, settling questions about prisoners of war, and charting a path of improved economic and strategic relations. In 2000, we went to Hanoi, the first visit by a U.S. President. We were prepared to find resentment, even hostility, but as we drove into the city, large crowds lined the streets to welcome us. Throngs of students, who had grown up knowing only peace between our nations, gathered at Hanoi National University to hear Bill speak. Everywhere we went we felt the warmth and hospitality of the Vietnamese people, a reflection of the goodwill that had developed between our countries in the span of a single generation and a powerful testament to the fact that the past does not have to determine the future.
Back in Hanoi as Secretary of State, I marveled at how far Vietnam had come since that visit and how our relations continued to improve. Our annual trade had grown to nearly $20 billion in 2010 from less than $250 million before relations were normalized, and it was expanding rapidly every year. Vietnam also presented a unique—though challenging—strategic opportunity. On the one hand, it remained an authoritarian country with a poor record on human rights, especially press freedoms. On the other, it was steadily taking steps to open up its economy and trying to claim a larger role in the region. Over the years Vietnamese officials had told me that, despite the war we had fought against them, they admired and liked America.
One of our most important tools for engaging with Vietnam was a proposed new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would link markets throughout Asia and the Americas, lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property. As President Obama explained, the goal of the TPP negotiations is to establish “a high standard, enforceable, meaningful trade agreement” that “is going to be incredibly powerful for American companies who, up until this point, have often been locked out of those markets.” It was also important for American workers, who would benefit from competing on a more level playing field. And it was a strategic initiative that would strengthen the position of the United States in Asia.
Our country has learned the hard way over the past several decades that globalization and the expansion of international trade brings costs as well as benefits. On the 2008 campaign trail, both then-Senator Obama and I had promised to pursue smarter, fairer trade agreements. Because TPP negotiations are still ongoing, it makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement. It’s safe to say that the TPP won’t be perfect—no deal negotiated among a dozen countries ever will be—but its higher standards, if implemented and enforced, should benefit American businesses and workers.
Vietnam also stood to gain a lot from this deal—the TPP would cover a third of world trade—so its leaders were willing to make some reforms to reach an agreement. As negotiations gained momentum, other countries in the region felt the same way. The TPP became the signature economic pillar of our strategy in Asia, demonstrating the benefits of a rules-based order and greater cooperation with the United States.
On the afternoon of July 22, the ASEAN regional meetings began in Hanoi’s National Convention Center with long, formal discussions on trade, climate change, human trafficking, nuclear proliferation, North Korea, and Burma. But as the meetings stretched into the second day, there was one topic on everyone’s mind: the South China Sea. The territorial disputes, already fraught with history, nationalism, and economics, had become a crucial test question: Would China use its growing power to dominate an expanding sphere of influence, or would the region reaffirm international norms that bind even the strongest nations? Naval vessels were squaring off in contested waters, newspapers were whipping up nationalist sentiments across the region, and diplomats were scrambling to prevent open conflict. Yet China kept insisting this wasn’t an appropriate topic for a regional conference.
That night I gathered Kurt Campbell and my Asia team to review our plans for the next day. What we had in mind would require subtle diplomacy, calling on all the groundwork we had laid in the region over the past year and a half. We spent hours fine-tuning the statement I would make the next day and working out the choreography with our partners.
As soon as we started the ASEAN session, the drama began to build. Vietnam got the ball rolling. Despite China’s objections to discussing the South China Sea in this setting, Vietnam raised the contentious issue. Then, one by one, other Ministers expressed their concerns and called for a collaborative, multilateral approach to resolving territorial disputes. After two years of China’s flexing its muscles and asserting its dominance, the region was pushing back. When the moment was right, I signaled my intention to speak.
The United States would not take sides on any particular dispute, I said, but we supported the multilateral approach being proposed, in accordance with international law and without coercion or the threat of force. I urged the nations of the region to protect unfettered access to the South China Sea and to work toward developing a code of conduct that would prevent conflict. The United States was prepared to facilitate this process because we saw freedom of navigation in the South China Sea as a “national interest.” That was a carefully chosen phrase, answering the earlier Chinese assertion that its expansive territorial claims in the area constituted a “core interest.”
When I was finished, I could see that Chinese Foreign Minister Yang was livid. He asked for an hour-long break before coming back to deliver his response. Staring directly at me, he dismissed the disputes in the South China Sea and warned against outside interference. Looking at his Asian neighbors, he reminded them, “China is a big country. Bigger than any other countries here.” It was not a winning argument in that room.
The confrontation in Hanoi did not resolve the contests in the South and East China Seas; those remain active and dangerous as of this writing. But in subsequent years, diplomats in the region would point to that meeting as a tipping point, both in terms of American leadership in Asia and in the pushback against Chinese overreach.
As I headed back to Washington, I felt more confident about our strategy and position in Asia. When we started in 2009, many in the region doubted our commitment and our staying power. Some in China sought to take advantage of that perception. Our pivot strategy was designed to dispel those doubts. During one long discussion with Dai, he exclaimed, “Why don’t you ‘pivot’ out of here?” I had logged more miles and sat through more awkwardly translated diplomatic speeches than I imagined possible. But it paid off. We had climbed out of the hole we found ourselves in at the beginning of the administration and reasserted America’s presence in the region. The years that followed would bring new challenges, from a sudden leadership change in North Korea to a standoff with the Chinese over the fate of a blind human rights dissident hiding in the U.S. Embassy. There would be new opportunities as well. Flickers of progress in Burma would ignite a dramatic transformation and carry the promise of democracy into the heart of that formerly closed land. And thanks in part to our determined efforts to establish mutual trust and habits of cooperation, relations with China would prove more resilient than many dared hope.
On the plane home from Hanoi, with my head still full of South China Sea drama, it was time to turn my attention to other urgent business. We were just over a week away from what would be one of the most important events in my life. The press was clamoring for information, and I had a lot of work to do to get ready. This time it wasn’t a high-level summit or a diplomatic crisis. It was my daughter’s wedding, a day I had been looking forward to for thirty years.
I was amused by how much attention Chelsea’s plans were getting, and not just in the United States. In Poland in early July, an interviewer had asked me how I was juggling preparations for the wedding while representing America as Secretary of State. “How can you cope with two quite different tasks, but both of them extremely serious?” he asked. And how serious a task it was! When Bill and I got married in 1975, the ceremony took place in front of a few friends and family in the living room of our little house in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I wore a lace-and-muslin Victorian dress I had found shopping with my mother the night before. Times had changed.
Chelsea and our soon-to-be son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, planned an unforgettable weekend for their families and friends in Rhinebeck, New York. As mother of the bride, I was delighted to help in every way I could, including reviewing photographs of flower arrangements from the road and making time for tastings and dress selections back home. I felt lucky that my day job had prepared me for the elaborate diplomacy required to help plan a big wedding. I got such a kick out of it that I referred to myself as “MOTB” (mother of the bride) in a Mother’s Day email to all State Department staff, also a nod to a necklace Chelsea had given me for Christmas with those same letters. Now that Hanoi was behind me, I was eager to get back to all the last-minute details and decisions that awaited.
On Monday I spent most of the day at the White House, meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office and with the rest of the national security team in the Situation Room and visiting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. I always enjoy seeing Ehud, and we were at another delicate moment for peace negotiations in the Middle East, but this time I couldn’t stop thinking about when I could leave and jump on a shuttle flight up to New York.
The big day finally arrived on Saturday, July 31. Rhinebeck is a lovely town in the Hudson Valley with quaint shops and good restaurants, and it provided the perfect setting. Chelsea’s and Marc’s friends and family gathered at Astor Courts, an elegant Beaux Arts estate designed by the architect Stanford White for Jacob and Ava Astor around the turn of the century. Its indoor swimming pool, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt is said to have performed physical therapy for his polio, may have been the first built for a private home anywhere in America. After Jacob Astor went down with the Titanic, the house was passed from owner to owner and spent a number of years as a nursing home run by the Catholic Church. In 2008 it was restored to its original beauty.
Chelsea looked absolutely stunning, and watching her walk down the aisle with Bill, I couldn’t believe that the baby girl I had held in my arms for the first time on February 27, 1980, had grown into this beautiful and poised woman. Bill was as emotional as I was, maybe even more so, and I was just glad he made it down the aisle in one piece. Marc was beaming as Chelsea joined him under the chuppah, a canopy of willow branches and flowers that is part of the Jewish marriage tradition. The service was led by the Reverend William Shillady and Rabbi James Ponet, and they hit just the right note. Marc stepped on a glass, in keeping with Jewish tradition, and everyone cheered. Afterward Bill danced with Chelsea to “The Way You Look Tonight.” It was one of the happiest and proudest moments of my life.
So many thoughts went through my head. Our family had been through a lot together, good times and hard times, and now here we were, celebrating the best of times. I was especially glad that my mother had been able to see this day. She overcame a difficult childhood with very little love or support, and yet still figured out how to be a loving and caring mom to me and my brothers, Hugh and Tony. She and Chelsea shared a special bond, and I knew how much it meant to Chelsea to have her grandmother beside her as she planned her wedding and married Marc.
I thought about the future, and the life that Chelsea and Marc would build together. They had so many dreams and ambitions. This, I thought, is why Bill and I had worked so hard for so many years to help build a better world—so Chelsea could grow up safe and happy and one day have a family of her own, and so every other child would have the same chance. I remembered what Dai Bingguo had said to me when he pulled out the photograph of his granddaughter: “This is what we’re in it for.” It was our responsibility to find a way to work together to make sure our children and grandchildren inherited the world they deserved.