In her whirlwind nine nation tour which ends today in Beijing, the new US Secretary of State, Mrs Madeleine Albright, has stamped her personality on American diplomacy and laid out a conspectus of many of its main concerns. It is quite an achievement, promising more interesting times after the bland style of her predecessor, Mr Warren Christopher.
Mrs Albright is the first woman appointed to this most demanding job. This makes her the highest female office holder in US history. She is refreshingly up front about her gender, blunt and frank in her approach to diplomacy, yet clearly exceptionally well briefed and prepared for the more finessed requirements of the job. Her linguistic facility, which includes competence in Russian, French and Czech, and her natural cosmopolitanism, make her an effective advocate for a more engaged US policy, at a time when many Europeans have been expressing renewed fears about US isolationism.
While it is too early to discern new initiatives, it is clear that Mrs Albright will be a forceful public representative of the Clinton administration's foreign policy. The principal theme of her European visit was NATO enlargement. She has justified it with an ambitious catalogue of objectives, which include consolidating democracy and the market economy in central and Eastern Europe and guaranteeing an enduring US presence in Europe. In coming months her enthusiasm for an enlarged alliance will be put severely to the test as the Russians decide whether to after their objections to this strategy by striking a hard bargain on the conditions attached to it. Indications are that a deal is possible.
Other themes of her discussions in Europe were her enthusiasm for EU integration and a readiness to deal with disagreements on such questions as Iran and Cuba in a businesslike fashion. On the Asian leg of her trip, Mrs Albright raised the question of the US trade deficit with Japan and reassured the Japanese about the US security commitment in East Asia. She then visited the frontier in Korea where it is currently most under threat. This was an opportunity to learn about the latest turmoil in North Korea, which has led to the defection of one of its most senior officials in Beijing.
In the Chinese capital, diplomats observed that the most significant factor about Mrs Albright's visit was that it took place at all, just hours before Deng Xiaoping's funeral. That it did so is a measure of the mutual desire to move US/Chinese relations decisively forward. Mrs Albright identified many of their main themes readily and frankly in her briefings for the media developing political and economic ties, human rights issues, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and China's entry into what she described in a telling phrase, as "our international community".
The Chinese side has emphasised again and again that they want to play a full part in international affairs, but in an independent and sovereign fashion, not beholden to any predominant power. There is potential here for running tension in US/Chinese relations; but much will depend on the sensitivity and skill with which Mrs Albright manages this agenda. Mrs Albright has described her country's world role as "indispensable". She is certainly determined to make it so. Those who value the US role in Ireland's peace process will have to come fully to terms with this new energy in US foreign policy.