President Barack Obama’s momentous victory has Europe and Asia sighing with relief accompanied by some applause. The love affair with Obama in 2008 has worn out and there are legions of disappointed former admirers in Europe. But Mitt Romney could not raise a smile in the European Union, China or India because of his less informed and tougher foreign policy views.
Many Europeans reeling from the ravages of severe austerity programs to cut government debt never managed to find common cause with Romney. They saw his ideas as more of the same from the American right to make the rich still richer and keep the middle class and poorer people in an ideology-based straitjacket that restricts upward mobility.
Yet, the reaction to Obama is cautious. Currently, he seems like the lesser of two bad choices. The élans of hope and expectations have faded that he would be transformational for both America and several parts of the troubled world. However, better him than wild card Romney.
This time, Obama will not get a honeymoon. Not even the traditional 100 days because of the other momentous event on the global calendar: the naming of China’s new rulers. Apart from a new President and Prime Minister, several hundred new and younger faces will be revealed after the once-in-ten-years conclave starting in Beijing on November 8.
The Chinese infighting for power will be as opaque as the electoral fight was transparent in America. The whole world knew what was happening in the US and waited with bated breath to see whose nose would cross the line first. The Chinese leadership changes will be sinister and take years to decipher.
In any case, China’s new look will bring early challenges for Obama. Asians are relieved that Romney did not win because he would have needed almost two years just to get a handle on the relationship with China, which is likely to be the next term’s most important foreign policy dossier. That’s because China is emerging as a transformational power capable of confronting Washington at every turn, if the new leaders think Obama will move more to the center right to obstruct China’s pretensions to super power status in its region.
Obama’s honeymoon with Europe will also be short. Pressure on him will grow to revive the US economy so that Europe can more easily get out from under its debt crises. Only the American economy is large enough and unified enough to become a locomotive for European resurrection. When Americans start buying again as they used to before 2008, prospects for a European turnaround will improve greatly.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Syria will continue to cast shadows on Obama’s second coming. But the world’s economic health depends on the US, China, Europe and perhaps India. Europeans and Asians know more about Obama than Romney so they will sip champagne on Wednesday with less stress. And Obama might yet deliver on his audacity of hope and change we should believe in. He has four more years to romance our hearts.
Globe via shutterstock.com