US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is missing the Democratic Party convention to build ties in Asia as the US relationship with China increasingly encroaches on politics back home.
Clinton, the most travelled secretary of State in US history, was heading on Sunday from a summit in the remote Cook Islands to Indonesia before she meets China’s top leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday in Beijing.
She will represent President Barack Obama at an Asia-Pacific summit in Vladivostok on September 8-9. The president formally launches his re-election bid at this week’s Democratic convention in North Carolina.
Since narrowly losing the party nomination to Obama in 2008, Clinton has devoted her energy to foreign policy and carefully stayed out of domestic politics – never showing an inch of public distance with her former rival while also maintaining cordial relationships with the rival Republican Party.
But China – a major priority throughout her term – has increasingly become a focus of Republican attacks with Obama’s opponent Mitt Romney vowing a harder line on issues including trade, human rights and the military balance.
Congressman Paul Ryan, Romney’s pick for vice president, said that a Republican administration would do more to crack down on China’s “cheating” on trade including “stealing” of US intellectual property.