Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
...Question: ...I was wondering, you talked about the situation in Asia and Obama's 'soft power'. I was wondering what you think is the best source for Obama in regards to foreign policy, especially tensions in Asia?
Richard Armitage: Well I think, uh, you'll see Mr. Obama go to Asia here shortly. First of all, let's see what he's done on Asia so far. He sent Hillary Clinton out there first [audience reaction], her first trip, which as normally for a Secretary of State, going to Europe. She went there and it was excellent signal to our Asian friends. Second, Mr. Obama, who lived in Indonesia for a time, is looking forward to going back, probably at the time of, of the APEC meeting which is held, I think, this year in Singapore. I can't remember where. But anyway, Mr. Obama will be, will be going. Uh, third, he has dramatically increased our interaction, uh, with Asian societies. In the last two years of Mr. Bush's administration the Assistant Secretary for East Asia focused almost entirely on North Korea - this is Ambassador Hill who's now in Iraq - to the exclusion of the others. And there were all kinds of stories in all the Asian press about America is passing over Asia etcetera, etcetera. Now this is one of the reasons that Secretary Gates was sent by Mr. Obama to Singapore to give this speech where he said we're a resident nation in Asia. So I think he's doing fantastically well for Asia now that we're back on track with Japan and South Korea and China on the six party talks. I think Mr. Obama ought to continue his personal interaction but not overlook the tenets of the Hippocratic Oath. You know what the Hippocratic Oath tells you to do? First, do no harm. It's what doctors are cautioned, first, do no harm. And this is what Mr. Obama should do first. Do no harm. And when he goes to Japan, when he goes to Korea, when he goes to China soon I think you'll see him do a hell of a lot of good for us. I'm pretty enthusiastic about his Asia team and his own views of Asia, not least of which because he used to live in Indonesia. [applause]...
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage speaking at Missouri Boys State in Hendricks Hall on the campus of the University of Central Missouri.
....Question: ...I have two questions. My first one was, is that, as you know, a lot of what we sell, er, buy comes from China and Japan and the Asian countries. Uh, you can't really pick up anything without seeing 'made in China', Japan, Korea there. Do you think this affects anything at all, like our economy, or do you think this is a good thing or a bad thing? What are your thoughts?
Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State: That's the first one, what about the second question?
Question: And the second one was, what is Persepodas? You said that, uh, the Persians, when you cut them and bleed, they bleed Persepodas, or something like that, and we wanted to know what that was.
Richard Armitage: Okay. The question of, when we buy cheap goods from China, it's, used to be from Japan, not, not much anymore, theirs are kind of high tech goods. Uh, I don't think it bothers us much. We're not doing the manufacturing. Uh, we've benefited immensely of, uh, of the Chinese products that we were buying here before. Now exports are way down.
What does have a big effect on our economy is the number of treasury bills that China holds. China, Japan hold enormous amounts of our treasury. I think the image that you should have of the three of us is of three people in sort of a circle, each with a gun at the other's head. If China pulls out their t-bills our economy falters terribly, but their bills are not worth very much. The same is true of Japan. So, they kind of have to keep us rocking along to keep the value in the treasury bills. So, I think at this point in time, uh, we're still all, in the words of, uh, Ben Franklin, gonna have to hang together or else we'll hang separately on this...
