Secretary Clinton met with women civil society leaders in China this morning. It's wonderful that she's able to take time out of her busy schedule -- packed with talking to leaders about what to do with North Korea -- and support women in the strides they're making around the world.

[Update, May 27, 2010: The transcript from the meeting is here.]

Secretary Clinton visited the Expo 2010 world's fair in Shanghai this Saturday, where you could hear "scattered calls" of "We love you, Hillary!" according to the Washington Post. Above, she greets Haibao, the Expo's mascot. Below, she checks out the logo-festooned USA Pavilion.

U.S. law makes government funding of an American pavilion difficult, so Clinton used her fundraising skills to bring in private money for the USA Pavilion. (See the March FP article, "A Sorry Spectacle." For fairness, check out the rebuttal piece "Defending the USA Pavilion.")

The result: an ugly USA Pavilion.

After mentioning that "corporate America" ponied up $60 million, the Washington Post describes the USA Pavilion this way:

[The USA Pavilion] resembles more a convention center in a medium-size American city than a national showcase -- a warren of dark rooms with movie screens that pales in comparison to the ambitious pavilions of, among others, Saudi Arabia, which features the world's biggest Imax screen, and Germany, festooned with hundreds of giant red balls.… 

In addition, the message Clinton experienced at the American pavilion was so larded with corporate advertising that even some of the visiting U.S. officials appeared to have been taken aback.

One film on the creative power of children featured interviews with representatives from corporate powerhouses Chevron, General Electric, Pepsico and Johnson & Johnson, with Habitat for Humanity and the University of Washington thrown in for good measure. That film was aired in the Citicorp room.

A film featuring a girl making her dreams come true and song lyrics that went, "You've got a dream, so plant it in your heart.… You can make it bloom so all the world will see," flashed this message in Chinese on the screen as it was ending, "This film was made by Pepsi."

Still, the USA Pavilion has proved popular among the Chinese. (The pavilion doesn't mention anything about democracy and freedom of expression, with the head of the pavilion's steering committee telling the Post that a main goal was not to be "insulting" to the Chinese.)

When asked her opinion of the Expo in its entirety, Clinton appeared moved and said,"It's so much of a tradition of these expos, all the way back to St. Louis or New York.… It's like a coming-out party for countries and cities. There's a real historical significance."

Asked about the USA Pavilion in particular, she said less enthusiastically, "It's fine."

Well, if corporate America paid for it, then it only makes sense that it should be a "corporate America" pavilion.

Three other bits of Clinton-related news:

•China's Xinhua news agency reports that Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi had a phone conversation today (perhaps Chinese time today?) in which they agreed to "spare no efforts in building a positive, cooperative and comprehensive Sino-U.S. relationship."

•After the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, yesterday, Clinton said in her remarks, "The Pakistani people have suffered grievous losses, but they are standing firm in the face of this intimidation -- and the United States stands with them."

•After the noon news briefing on the new U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, Clinton will have Nigeria on her mind, launching the U.S.-Nigeria Binational Commission at 3 p.m. today, after a bilateral with the Nigerian secretary to the federal government.

Tibet's Dalai Lama arrived at Washington's Park Hyatt hotel today, as seen above. He'll be meeting separately with Secretary Clinton and President Obama on Thursday. In the wake of Clinton's speech on Internet freedom, the Chinese probably aren't too happy.

After learning that Google might pull out of China after an attack on its computer services, Secretary Clinton -- who, interestingly enough, will be giving a speech about Internet freedom on Jan. 21 -- said:

We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy. I will be giving an address next week on the centrality of Internet freedom in the 21st century, and we will have further comment on this matter as the facts become clear."

Just last week, Clinton dined with a small group of leading technology executives, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

LifeNews.com, which describes itself as a news agency that brings "pro-life news to the pro-life community," has highlighted an important comment that Secretary Clinton made in her recent interview with the New York Times. In discussing women's rights, she said:

Obviously, there’s work to be done in both India and China, because the infanticide rate of girl babies is still overwhelmingly high, and unfortunately with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they’d rather have a boy. And those are deeply set attitudes. But at the governmental level, there is a great deal of openness and commitment that I am seeing."

Clinton's comments on this deplorable practice are commendable, though she left out some nuance when she said parents do it "simply because they'd rather have a boy." Often, it's a matter of economics: Boys bring wealth into a family, and girls drain tons of money out. Sons earn more money and financially support their elderly parents in communities where nothing like Social Security exists. Meanwhile, in India, parents must pay enormous, financially crippling dowries when their daughters get married. Absolutely none of this morally justifies sex-selective abortion, but these are issues that must be addressed in order to eradicate this shameful practice.

(Obviously, other factors -- such as family and social pressure -- are at play, too. Sex-selective abortion in India has been found to occur at higher rates among more educated people, presumably because they're more likely to be able to afford an ultrasound exam and abortion.)

Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

•Secretary Clinton was interviewed by David Gregory for the full hour of Meet the Press yesterday, and she did an outstanding job. She answered each question clearly, intelligently, and -- of course -- diplomatically. For example, when asked whether she would be betraying the democracy movement in Iran by engaging and negotiating with the regime it aims to overthrow, Clinton responded:

We have negotiated with many governments who we did not believe represented the will of their people. Look at all the negotiations that went on with the Soviet Union. Look at the breakthrough and subsequent negotiations with communist China. That's what you do in diplomacy. You don't get to choose the people; that's up to the internal dynamics within a society. But clearly, we would hope better for the Iranian people. … Yet, we also know that whoever is in charge in Iran is going to be making decisions that will affect the security of the region and the world."

•Clinton also engaged in a bit of damage control after Vice President Joe Biden's eyebrow-raising comments that Russia was a country with a "withering economy" and was "clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable." Clinton told Gregory, "We view Russia as a great power." She added:

What we're seeing here is the beginning of the resetting of that relationship, which I have been deeply involved in. I will be co-chairing a presidential commission along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. We'll be following up on what our two presidents said in Moscow. And the Russians know that, you know, we have continuing questions about some of their policies, and they have continuing questions about some of ours."

•Clinton, above, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are leading the U.S. delegation at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue today and tommorow in Washington. Clinton opened the talks by saying that China and the United States "are laying brick by brick the foundation of a stronger relationship" and that it is time to transition from "a multipolar world to a multipartner world."

•Clinton will be visiting Nigeria Aug. 10 to 12. She'll also be visiting four other African countries -- Kenya (the birthplace of President Obama's father), and tentatively Angola, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Dow Jones Newswires reports.

Photos, from top to bottom: Meet the Press, Alex Wong/Getty Images

China has expressed "strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to Secretary Clinton's statements marking the 20th anniversary of the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters. (In the photo above, the People's Liberation Army guards a street leading to Tiananmen Square on June 6, 1989, two days after the infamous crackdown.)

On June 3, Clinton called on the Chinese government to "provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal." She also said China should "give the rule of law, protection of internationally-recognized human rights, and democratic development the same priority as it has given to economic reform."

In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman criticized Clinton for "crudely meddling in Chinese domestic affairs." He also said, "We urge the United States to forsake its prejudices, correct its erroneous ways and avoid obstructing and damaging China-U.S. relations."

The Chinese government has never published a count of those who died. A New York Times article yesterday stated that hundreds died.

The bold tone of Clinton's remarks are a contrast to those she made in February, in which she seemed to downplay human rights as a priority.

Photo: MANUEL CENETA/AFP/Getty Images

 

The Chicago Tribune reports today that Secretary Clinton's outspoken style is "raising eyebrows," a subject I touched upon in my post "Was Clinton too verbally hard on Pakistan?"

Some comments of hers that have stirred debate:

• In April 22, she said the Pakistani government was "abdicating" to the Taliban. (At the time, the Taliban was 60 miles from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.) Her comments on Pakistan "really went over the top," Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress told the Tribune.
• On April 30, she said North Korea's return to talks seems "implausible if not impossible."
• On May 1, she said that China, like Iran, has made "quite disturbing" gains in Latin America.

Basically, Clinton has been boldly telling it like it is when normally in the diplomacy world unpleasant facts aren't addressed with such candor. "She's saying the emperor has no clothes," L. Gordon Flake of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation told the Tribune. "She's saying the things that nobody else would say, but that 99 percent of the people in Washington agree with."

Clinton might be stating her views "undiplomatically," but perhaps such tough talk gets results. Regarding her comments on the Pakistani government, an unnamed State Department official told the Tribune "They weren't doing anything before she said that. Then after she said it, they suddenly were taking it pretty seriously, and met with greater success. … I think she got their attention."

So far, President Obama hasn't told Clinton to tone it down, but Condoleezza Rice's former speechwriter thinks the current secretary of state should hold her tongue.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images