Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that deepening of America's relationship with key countries like Russia, China and India gives the US a better understanding and also to its counterparts.
"I happen to be a big believer. I think that deepening our engagement with key countries, like Russia, China, India and others, gives us a better understanding and also to our counterparts," Clinton said in her remarks at the Brookings Institute here.
"It also puts the relationship on a broader framework than just the usual hot-spot crisis emergency that then marshals everybody's attention.
And we have seen how just in this last year, using those dialogues has helped to address some serious common problems. But it has also helped to keep the relationship on an even keel going forward," she observed.
"We have as you know built on the work or prior administrations, with respect to China, and now have probably the biggest exchange of government officials and sharing of insights that we have ever had, not only with China but probably with any country," she said referring to the last week's US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
The US is having its first strategic dialogue with India next week.
"With India, which starts next week, it is the first time ever we've had a ministerial strategic dialogue.
There have been interactions, of course, at many levels," she said and quickly referred to Strobe Talbot of the Brookings who was the Clinton Administration's point man for India.
"But we want to develop connections not only between high-ranking diplomats, as Strobe was, but also between people working on higher education, people working on clean water, people working on women's empowerment. And that is exactly what we intend to do," Clinton said.
"We are investing in developing countries that we believe are reaching the tipping point, such as Ghana and Tanzania, to help create new capable partners.
The president's speech in Ghana last year was a real clarion call to countries in Africa to think about their potential differently and to build institutions, to move from the rule of men to the rule of law. And so we want to work to create more success stories," she said.
Referring to the last week's dialogue with China, Clinton said nearly 200 top US officials attended the second dialogue of its kind with China. "A lot of the work that was done is never going to get into a headline, but it is significant," she said. "Two quick examples. We signed the first-ever agreement where American experts will work with their Chinese counterparts in developing the natural-gas industry in China, which holds promise. Why is that important? Well, for China, having indigenous independent energy sources is good news for them. For us, China with indigenous independent energy sources is good news for us, because we see, then, a shift away from energy dependence in parts of the world that obviously influence their foreign policy," Clinton said. "If you have to keep your factories running and the lights on, and there are certain places in the world that provide that, then that's going to influence, you know, how you treat your engagements with those countries," she said. "Secondly, we did a lot of talking about development. You know, China is present very heavily in Africa and Latin America and other parts of Asia doing development work, much of it tied to economic interests, but not exclusively. We actually began to have a conversation for the first time about how we can better understand what they're doing, be more transparent with what we're doing and look for ways to work together," Clinton said.
