The audacity of hope, enormity of challenges

Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States at a crossroads of US history.

The first African-American president steps into the Oval Office when he, in his own words, inherits two wars, and an epochal financial and economic crisis.

Seldom has so much hope confronted so much anxiety when the American people stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world.

"Obama's record approval ratings from the US public, (70 to 80 percent) in the presidential election, is a triumph of American voters' vision of national redemption and reconciliation," said Tao Wenzhao, director of the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Those numbers have risen during the 77-day transition period as Obama has unveiled his cabinet appointments.

Some of that approbation derives from the bipartisan flavor of the people he has selected.

By keeping on Robert Gates, the Republican Pentagon chief, and offering the most prized cabinet job to Hillary Clinton, his former bitter rival in the Democratic primaries, Obama has put together a team which has impressed almost everyone with its caliber and centrism.

His choices to incorporate all types of opinion and adversary into his cabinet offer some clues as to how he intends to govern, according to Fu Mengzi, assistant president of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

In Audacity of Hope, Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Obama wrote: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

Still, analysts worry the US government is up to its nose in debt, which will put Obama's domestic and foreign policies in a suffocating bind.

Foremost on Obama's agenda is the worst recession in generations, where his domestic and international priorities intersect.

The immediate task is daunting - he will be compelled to take a series of weighty decisions to stimulate the economy at home, while also taking the lead in revamping the global financial system.

One thing seems certain: The meltdown is going to hang over at least the first 18 months of the Obama presidency.

Clear hints of how he plans to tackle his first 100 days have been given as he has vowed a massive economic package to jolt the country out of a severe downturn and restore trust in the financial system.

The new administration would save or create at least 3 million jobs over the next two years through a fiscal stimulus package centering on tax cuts and public works spending.

Contrary to the view that the crisis will force him to shelve expensive campaign promises to reform healthcare and upgrade infrastructure, Obama is determined to extend health insurance to millions who have negligible cover, enhance infrastructure and invest in energy-saving technologies.

Despite the priority of short-term economic stimulus, Obama said his team would also tackle reforming the social security retirement system and put a down payment on some of the structural problems in economy.

While perceiving crisis as a chance to accelerate such plans, he has also been talking down expectations, warning things could get worse before they get better and saying recovery is not going to happen overnight.

Goldman Sachs economists expect the stimulus to end the recession in the second half of 2009, but the unemployment rate to keep rising through late 2010. Experts stressed that the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, falling only after a recovery is well under way.

Alongside job creation, the Obama administration will make "financial repair" to restore the flow of credit a priority.

With some of the nation's biggest banks under intense strain, he may face tough decisions about redesigning the bailout strategy even as more money is being poured in.

His team is reportedly considering setting up an "aggregator bank", to acquire bad assets clogging the financial system and roiling world economies.

Any recovery from the economic crisis would depend on banks first writing off toxic loans to restore confidence in the financial system.

Experts reckon that the global slowdown could deepen unless countries unite to brave it.

For a US president who campaigned with a call to rally "world citizens", the steep recession and the stalled flow of financial credit could be a pivotal hinge to welcome more partnerships to meet these challenges.

Rather than look solely inward, Obama must seize this momentum when so many nations may be seeking joint action.

As he looks across his nation's borders, his most important priority must be to show that the US is back in the business of exporting hope rather than fear, said Tao.

Obama has pledged to renew US diplomacy to meet with all nations, be they friends or foes, to mend through dialogue the tattered fabric of the US' reputation.

At a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Clinton set the tone for the new administration's foreign policy - biding farewell to George W. Bush's unipolar fantasy and pursuing diplomacy of "smart power" - an effective combination of hard and soft power into a smart strategy.

The first big test of his diplomatic prowess will be the Middle East conflict. Obama says he will work for a peace deal from day one.

It appears that he is greeted by an Israeli declaration of a cease-fire, one that appears partly intended to ease Obama's Inauguration Day.

But in the long run, the new president will face a mountain of critical, complex, and interrelated challenges in the region demanding urgent attention.

A successful strategy in the Middle East, as Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, pointed out in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, will require the Obama administration to move beyond Iraq, find ways to deal constructively with Iran, and forge a final-status Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

Experts reckon the effectiveness of a steady withdrawal of troops from Iraq by late 2011 and a surge into Afghanistan will depend on events on the ground, including political compromises inside Iraq and dialogue with Iraq's neighbors, but a clear sense of direction has been established.

The improved situation in Iraq will allow the new administration to shift its focus to Iran.

Obama has pledged to conduct a direct official engagement with Iran, without the preconditions that hampered Bush.

As for the most urgent diplomatic issue in Asia - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear program, the new administration may put pressure on Pyongyang by suspending the supply of fuel oil while stressing the importance of maintaining the Six-Party framework on the issue.

What all these initiatives have in common is a renewed emphasis on diplomacy as a tool of US national security policy, since days when Washington can achieve its objectives without the backing of its regional allies as well as Europe, Russia and China are long gone.

Clinton was right to say, "We must build a world with more partners and fewer adversaries."

Experts said China and the US depend so much on each other that they share a practical need to forge a new world order together.

It is sincerely hoped that the new administration will carry on and consolidate its predecessor's effective policy of developing rapport with China, for a healthy Sino-US relationship is key to the two countries as well as to the rest of the world.

Undoubtedly, Obama has a long and tricky policy challenge ahead of him, much like trying to walk on the edge of a sword.

The activists who loved him when he promised vaguely-defined change may love him less when he has to make hard choices.

He has to lay out to the world a new paradigm, something that goes beyond the war on terror and draws the partners of a re-imagined US, less aggressive but still indispensable.

With a fresh visionary in the White House, let us see further into the future.

(China Daily 01/21/2009 page9)