Source: CNN's GPS
Hillary Clinton's recent trip to Asia marks the first time that a U.S. Secretary of State has made the continent his or her first stop since 1961. To discuss her trip's implications, Carnegie's Minxin Pei joined Kishore Mahbubani and Shekhar Gupta on Fareed Zakaria's program, GPS.
Pei cautioned against growing protectionist sentiment in the United States. Noting that 50% of Chinese exports are manufactured by American companies and other multinationals, he explained that erecting barriers against those exports would ultimately harm the American economy.
He also observed that the global financial crisis has rattled the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), especially since growth in China has decelerated beyond even the most pessimistic predictions. With a leadership succession coming up in three or four years, Pei suspects that the CCP is more concerned about quelling internal unrest than on engaging with the United States on pressing issues. Nonetheless, he said that one potential substantive outcome of the talks could be a Sino-American climate change agreement.