This year China may pass Germany as the world’s largest exporting country, just as it recently passed the United States as the world’s top polluter.  The U.S. still has by far the world’s largest economy, although this fact has been getting buried in the avalanche of bad economic news of late. After the global community is able to pull itself up from economic collapse and confusion, there will be two players on whom the world’s economic progress will largely depend — the United States and China. If you want to know where today domestic meets foreign policy in the Obama Administration, look no farther than Secretary Clinton’s just-concluded trip.  The U.S. needs China to help finance the deficit spending essential to lift the world’s largest economy out of a deepening recession.  Some help on climate change would be welcome too.

The fact that an Asian trip (including Indonesia, Japan and South Korea as well as China) was her first overseas travel as Secretary of State has been commented on as symbolic of the future of U.S. foreign policy, but even more important were the tenor and tone of the meetings that she had.  The emphasis was on making a statement of serious, constructive purpose and — most of all — working together with China in a pragmatic way.  Last night on the News Hour News Hour, Wendy Sherman and Christian Brose were paired in the usual sort of pro and contra over how the trip went.  Brose, a former Condi Rice staffer, said (somewhat defensively I thought) that the idea of going to Asia first “was one that [we] had recommended.”  In retrospect, Rice’s engagement on East Asia was not notable.

Clinton has shown that she knows how to dial down her public comments from those she made last year on the campaign trail and earlier in the U.S. Senate.  This is required not just by her job as Secretary of State, but by the economy of the country whose foreign relations she now represents.  Also, Anne Applebaum is right:  there are better ways to make points on human rights policy than by toss-off public statements.  Comments may be tailored, not actions.