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Harmony Diplomacy in Work

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By Francis C. W. Fung, PH.D.

The US media, which accustomed to confrontational cold war diplomacy, has been slow to recognize the signs of world harmony diplomacy on the rise. The profit-driven, corporate and military complex dominated American media looks sluggish when faced with the tide of win-win mutual development between nations.

It remains to be seen if the US media will finally learn world harmony diplomacy and move forward to the 21st century.

Besides the overbearing American foreign policy, the condescending attitude in the media for the past 50 years, is also to blame for the mistrust created between the States and other nations. A change of heart in American media will certainly help to create a better world understanding for the US government to continue practicing world harmony diplomacy.

The following are major current event stories showing signs of harmony diplomacy on the rise drastically under reported by the US media.

On Wednesday May 23, 2007, Chinese and American officials ended a key economic dialogue in Washington in agreement.

The meeting was co-chaired by Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson and China's Vice Premier Wu Yi.

During the two day Second Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED), top economic officials from the two countries discussed topics covering areas of service, investment, transparency, energy and environment as well as growth balance and innovation.

As witnessed by the fact sheet jointly issued at the closing, the two sides reached consensus on how to move forward on financial services, civil aviation, energy and environment as well as signing a number of specific agreements.

One cannot help but notice that the tone of the fact sheet shows great diplomacy at work. This consensus is surprising because of the perennial trade friction between the two nations, particularly in light of the climate of the China bashing, which was resulted from the recent Congressional trade protectionism mentality.

In contrast to past foibles, President George W. Bush made the correct diplomatic choice for US-China relations, as well as for world harmony.

At a White House press conference, Bush said that the just concluded US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue is "important" and there has been some progress achieved at the dialogue, stating that "this is an important dialogue. And it's one that I thank the Chinese government for engaging in."

Bush also met with Vice Premier Wu Yi in the White House Oval Office and said he appreciates China's willingness "to work with strategic dialogues in order to put in place the type of measures that reflect a complex relationship."

To set the proper tone for the consultation and consensus, the principle negotiators from both sides were careful in their statements. "Thanks for the careful attention and joint efforts from both sides, the second meeting of the strategic dialogue achieved great success," said Wu. The economic and trade relationship between China and the US is one of the most complicated in today's world, she said. The SED provides an excellent platform for both sides to "further understanding and trust in terms of strategic issues."

Vice Premier Wu added "Equal consultation, cooperation and win-win have become the overall situation and defining nature of China-US relations, both being stakeholders and constructive partners."

"Politicizing economic and trade issues is absolutely unacceptable, since it is of no help but will make the situation more complicated, harm bilateral economic and trade relations or even cause serious negative impact on the progress of overall China-US ties," she added.

On his part, Paulson said that US and China both understood that "getting the economic relationship right is vital not only to our people, but to the world economy." Paulson also said, "The purpose of this on going dialogue is to have candid discussions and f