fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Huntsman Was Loyal, But Obama and China Guessed That He Wasn’t

True loyalty is always to put party before country, such seems to be the RedState idea. The Huntsman candidacy is a good place to test whether that view is as widely shared as Erickson believes – and as America’s ill-wishers have always hoped. ~David Frum Frum has entirely misunderstood Erickson’s attack. Erickson held that Huntsman […]

True loyalty is always to put party before country, such seems to be the RedState idea. The Huntsman candidacy is a good place to test whether that view is as widely shared as Erickson believes – and as America’s ill-wishers have always hoped. ~David Frum

Frum has entirely misunderstood Erickson’s attack. Erickson held that Huntsman was disloyal to Obama and also to the country on account of his presumed planning for a presidential run. The first part of the claim is plausible enough, and there is evidence that the administration reacted badly to the Huntsman political speculation in ways that affected how Huntsman was allowed to work in Beijing. A report in The Daily Beast relates how the administration imposed greater controls on Huntsman after media speculation on his possible 2012 run started up again in January:

After a January Newsweek article set off a flurry of speculation that Huntsman would make a bid for the presidency, the Obama administration began taking aggressive measures to ensure that Huntsman wouldn’t be able to use his appointment for 2012 posturing, said the official, requesting anonymity to discuss internal matters.

“Once the resignation was submitted, politics probably became much more of a question mark, and it was tense,” the official said. “On the embassy side, there was suspicion that [Huntsman] was being subjected to greater scrutiny than he would have otherwise been.”

According to the official, who was not a political appointee, the administration began micromanaging Huntsman’s schedule, canceling media appearances and carefully vetting his public remarks. The source specifically noted a major education speech in Shanghai that was heavily scrutinized by administration officials “to make sure it was kosher.”

The second part of the claim that Huntsman was disloyal to the U.S. is quite a reach, and there isn’t much to support it. According to the same McKay Coppins’ report, there is no evidence that Huntsman ever did anything that would compromise his work as ambassador. Regardless, Frum’s description is exactly the opposite of what Erickson said. However implausibly or unfairly, Erickson was judging Huntsman by an extremely high standard of “country first” and found him wanting. Erickson’s attack on Huntsman was probably the least partisan argument he has made in quite a while. Frum is so busy rehearsing his tedious moderate Republican line that he doesn’t even notice.

Something that is embarrassing to Huntsman is that the presidential rumors definitely affected his ability to do his job in China. This was not because he was abusing his position, but because the Chinese government and public began viewing his work as part of his positioning for a presidential run rather than as a representative of the United States government:

But even if Huntsman kept his political aspirations separate from his diplomatic work, as most people familiar with the situation have indicated, observers say the presidential buzz unquestionably affected his relationship with the Chinese government.

“There may have been some in Chinese policymaking circles who thought they could split Washington and take advantage of what they thought was a disconnect in American policy toward China,” said Russell Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst.

Experts in China also said the 2012 speculation colored the perception of Huntsman’s actions by the country’s government and citizens.

When Huntsman delivered a pointed speech at the end of his term condemning China’s human-rights record, many took it not as a genuine indictment but an effort to impress “the electing populace,” said Guo Xiangang, vice president of the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing.

Another international relations expert in China, who requested anonymity to address the sensitive issues, confirmed the sentiment.

This confirms that the Huntsman speculation led to the problem that James Fallows worried about when the first Huntsman 2012 rumors started swirling, and it seems that his concerns were justified.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here