오늘자 Washington Post지의 오바마 대통령의 중국방문의 성과에 대한 분석 기사를 읽으면서, 권력과 영화는 영원하지 않다는 평범한 진리를 다시 확인 하는것 같아, 미국에 대한 연민의 정이 마음에 깊이 가라앉는것을 느꼈다. 전임 미국대통령들이, 최근의 부쉬가 방문할때에도 Super Power로서의 힘을 과시 하면서 회담의제나 의전문제등도 미국식으로 거의 이끌면서 정상회담을 했었지만 결과는 그의 소신데로 받아 들여 지지 않았던, 그래서 과거속의 미국으로 바뀌어 가는 양상을 느꼈던 신문기사의 내용을 아직도 기억하고 있는데, 이번에는 그런 지난날과는 너무나도 다른 힘없는 미국대통령을 보는것 같아, 개인적으로 안쓰러운 마음까지 들었다.1998년도 당시 클링턴 대통령이 중국을 방문했을때에도, 인민대회장에서 열린 정상회담에서, 그는 이미 10년전에 일어났던 천안문 사태를 예로 들면서, 인권문제를 개선토록 중국측에 당당하게 요청은 했었다, 그라나 당시 주석 장쩌민은 별다른 이의없이 한마디로 인권문제는 안된다 라고 잘라 말하면서, 미국을 압박했지만, 대신에 대만문제를 물고 늘어지면서 겨우 형평을 이루는 정상회담을 했었다. 미국의 어느 전임 대통령보다 오바마 대통령은 중국의 협력이 필요함을 절감하고 있는 것이다. 당시 미국의 재일큰 부채국은 중국이 아닌 스페인이었고, 멕시코와의 교역량이 당시 중국과의 교역량보다 2배 이상 많았었다. 그러나 지금은 그상황이 완전히 바뀌어, 미국이 중국에 $1조 달러의 빛을 지고 있으며, 이시간에도 중국제품이 미전역을 홍수가 밀려들듯 시장을 석권하고 있는 현실이지만, 미국은 거의 속수 무책이다. 그져 이번 중국방문 정상 회담은 중국을 달래기위한 양상을 띄고, 같은 장소인 인민대회장에서 후주석과 정상회담을 했지만, 회의 의제나 의전도 거의 중국의 주장데로 진행 됐다고 하며, 중국측의 제안으로 양정상은 정상회담후 성명문만 서로 발표하고, 정상회담후 의례히 행해졌던 기자회견에서 질의 응답은 아예 없애고 바로 퇴장 했다고 한다. 국제무역에서 공정한 거래를 위해 중국화폐 위안화의 절상에 합의를 이루어내야 하는 큰 문제에 기대를 걸었었지만, 중국은 한마디로 '아직은 아니오' 식으로 버티었다고 한다. 이러한 회담 내용을 보면서, 조국 대한민국의 최근세사중에서, 시류의 흐름에 어쩔수 없이 가세가 기울은 부자가, 처자식을 먹여 살리기 위해, 지금은 신흥 부자가 된, 옛 하인이나, 상대도 해 주지 않던 중인을 찾아가, 그래도 체면은 있어서 목에 힘을 주면서 도움을 청하는, 그러나 그 목소리에는 힘이 실리지 못하고 어딘가 떨리는듯한 얘틋하고, 이빨빠진 호랑이 같은 분위기가 이어지는 장면을 연상케 하는 현실의 냉혹함을, 오바마 대통령이 중국 방문에서 겪고 있는 모습에서 느낄수 있었다. 중국에 대한 조국의 앞날도 짚어 보지 않을수 없음을 깊이 느꼈다. 중국 전역에 생중계된 후주석과의 회담에서 오바마 대통령은 중국의 인권문제를 애원하는듯한 제스쳐로 TV에 비쳐졌었고, 상하이 대학에서 학생들에게 행한 연설내용은 인류사에서 일찌기 볼수 없었던 경제적 성장에 대한 칭송으로 중국당국의 환심을 사기위한 내용으로 이해 됐으며, 연설후 학생들과의 대담은 전국적으로 생방송될것으로 생각됐던 예상을 뒤엎고, 오직 지역 방송에서만 볼수 있도록 하는 수모(?)를 주기도 했단다. 오바마 대통령이 잠바차림으로 '만리장성'을 오르내리면서 무엇을 생각 했을까? 아마도 중국의 어마어마한 저력을 느끼지 않았을까? 혼자걷는 모습이 당당했다기 보다는 뭔가가 그의 어깨를 억누르고 있는것 같은 왜소한 모습으로 보였음은 나만이 느꼈음일까?
백악관측은 이번 중국 방문에서 오바마는 인권문제등 민감한 문제에 과거 어느 고위 관료가 했던것 보다 더 힘차게 대쉬 했다고 주장 하지만 그말을 액면 그대로 믿을 사람들이 얼마나 될까? 개인간이나 국가간이나 역시 힘과 돈이 기세를 좌우 한다는것을 확실히 보는것 같다.
젊었을때 쟁쟁 했던 Senior들의 남은 인생 살아가는, 전쟁무용담을 즐겨 얘기하곤 하는 노병들의 남은 인생 살아가는것과 비슷할것 같은, 그래서 마음은 있지만, 신체가 따라가주지 못하는 애잔한 느낌이 가슴을 조이는것 같다.
와싱턴 포스트지의 분석 기사를 여기에 옮겨 싣는다.
In Obama's China trip, a stark contrast with the past
White House says U.S.-China relations are 'at an all-time high'
By Andrew Higgins and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 18, 2009; 10:16 AM
BEIJING -- President Obama has emerged from his first trip to China with no big breakthroughs on important issues, such as Iran's nuclear program or China's currency. Yet after two days of talks with the United States' biggest creditor, the administration asserted that relations between the two countries are at "at an all-time high."
Although one concrete advance emerged -- that the United States may offer a target for carbon-emission cuts to boost climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month if China offers its own proposal -- it was a relatively small step for a new president who had campaigned on a promise to enact far-reaching change in U.S. diplomatic interactions.
If there was any significant change during this trip, in fact, it was in the United States' newly conciliatory and sometimes laudatory tone. In a joint appearance with President Hu Jintao on Tuesday, Obama hailed China as an economic partner that has "proved critical in our effort to pull ourselves out of the worst recession in generations." The day before, speaking to students in Shanghai, he described China's rising prosperity as "an accomplishment unparalleled in human history."
On a visit to the Great Wall Wednesday after his last official business, a morning meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the U.S. president offered yet more gushing tributes. He declared the ancient structure "spectacular" and "majestic" and told a Chinese journalist that he had "great admiration for Chinese civilization."
U.S. presidents have been trekking to China -- and also lauding the Great Wall -- since Richard Nixon visited in 1972. But, in both form and content, Obama's trip stood in stark contrast to the journeys of his predecessors.
The changes reflect not so much a policy shift by a new administration in Washington as a dramatic and much bigger change in the power dynamic, particularly in economics, over the past decade -- a change that has been the central undercurrent of Obama's swing through China this week.
In 1998, when President Bill Clinton stood before television cameras in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, the United States owed more money to Spain than to China and did more than twice as much trade with Mexico. At a freewheeling news conference, Clinton criticized China's military crackdown a decade earlier in Tiananmen Square and traded spirited jibes with President Jiang Zemin.
On Tuesday, Obama stood in the same building alongside another Chinese leader. This time, with the United States in hock to China for more than $1 trillion dollars and flooded with Chinese-made goods, it was a Chinese-style news conference. Each leader read a prepared statement and eyed the other in silence. There were no questions.
Since leaving Washington last Thursday for an eight-day tour of Asia, Obama has occasionally nudged China on issues such as Tibet and Internet censorship. But he has more often trumpeted China's achievements and pleaded with Beijing for increased help on the world stage.
China returned the effusiveness in its music selection at a state dinner for Obama on Tuesday night. The People's Liberation Army serenaded him and other U.S. officials with "I Just Called to Say I Love You," "In the Mood" and "We Are the World," as Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sat on either side of the Chinese president over a steak dinner.
In many ways, the United States and China have never been closer, as reflected in a raft of joint projects outlined during Obama's visit here. Ahead of meetings with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday, Obama said the relationship is deepening beyond trade and economics to cover climate, security and other matters of international concern. Those would include previously announced and now reinvigorated efforts on stem-cell research, crime prevention and military contacts. But with the rituals and even the substance of the two nations' interactions increasingly on Chinese terms, Obama advisers insisted that their overtures and polite tone are in pursuit of long-term results, a reflection of China's growing importance.
When President Clinton visited China in 1998, the United States was still basking in its position as Cold War victor and the world's sole superpower. It sought China's help on only a narrow range of international issues, such as the spread of missile technology and North Korea. China was just shaking off the stigma of the 1989 crackdown. It was the seventh-biggest holder of U.S. Treasury securities. Today, China is the nation's biggest creditor and its trade with the United States has grown sevenfold.
Also changed are the faces in the Chinese leadership. Jiang, Clinton's 1998 sparring partner in the Great Hall of the People, was an often boisterous character who liked to sing, and also comb his hair, in public. Hu, Obama's host, is a far more buttoned-down and cautious sort.
Clinton could not tell Chinese leaders what to do. Indeed, he had to abandon a big push on human rights when China simply said no. And his challenge to Jiang over Tiananmen was paired with a significant concession over Taiwan.
But Clinton and other U.S. presidents never needed China's help nearly as much as Obama's America needs Hu's.
Whether as a creditor, an emitter of greenhouse gases or a neighbor of Afghanistan, China has clout that the United States now desperately needs. "The U.S.-China relationship has gone global," said Jon Huntsman Jr., the new U.S. ambassador to Beijing and a fluent Chinese speaker.
At the same time, however, China has been far more insistent about asserting its will, most obviously in small but symbolically significant matters of stage management. A town hall-style meeting in Shanghai that the White House had hoped would allow the president to reach out to ordinary Chinese was drained of spontaneity by Chinese-scripted choreography. Tuesday's news conference had no questions, at China's behest.
The Obama White House said it pushed back against restrictions, and it denied that the nation's indebtedness to China has made it any less forceful.
Referring to the fact that China holds Treasury securities worth nearly $800 billion, as well as billions more in other forms of U.S. debt, Michael Froman, economic adviser on the National Security Council, said "the $800 billion never came up in conversation."
"The president dealt with every issue on his agenda in a very direct way and pulled no punches," he said.
U.S. officials insisted that, despite constraints, Obama still got his message to the Chinese public. State television provided live coverage of his Tuesday appearance with Hu, which featured an appeal by the U.S. president on human rights.
"America's bedrock beliefs that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights," Obama said, "are universal rights" that "should be available to all people." He also urged China to resume talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.
White House officials described Obama as even more forceful behind closed doors, suggesting that the administration is more eager to engage with reality than grandstand. Obama had "as direct a discussion of human rights as I've seen by any high-level visitor with the Chinese" when he met with Hu, said Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council's chief Asia hand, who also worked for President Clinton.
Furthermore, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, the administration had not expected "that the waters would part and everything would change over our almost 2 1/2 -day trip to China."
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