President Obama’s speech in Cairo last Thursday was a remarkable achievement.
It was also a lesson in America’s ability to produce a foreign policy U-turn in a short space of time. It wasn’t long ago, after all, that President Bush was given a standing ovation by Israel’s legislature, as he spoke of risks of terrorism.
So, where does this leave China? The country had benefited from growing mistrust between America and the Middle East. Riyadh’s warming relationship with Beijing, for instance, was in part a hedge against its deteriorating relationship with Washington.
Critics will argue the speech puts Beijing on the back foot. And it perhaps isn’t a surprise that the People’s Daily, China’s official newspaper, referenced the speech, not on the front page like other major dailies, but instead on page three.
