Advice for Obama

The Afghan people are ready to believe again. We are waiting for statesmanship, forged in the best American tradition, to overcome past neglect and help us create an Afghan state that is stable and legitimate at home and respected abroad.

Ghani,the former Finance minister of Afghanistan, is chairman of the Institute of State Effectiveness.

And Three States Obama Should Visit:
China: Our American Dream
By Michael Anti

In 1989, even as the Chinese government cracked down on the Tiananmen Square protests and the Chinese copy of the Statue of Liberty suddenly vanished from TV screens, a subtle change was occurring in the way English was taught in my high school. The British accent was being replaced by an American one, and my teachers started telling me I should repeat "the past has been passed" in a flat Yankee way. China has long since started following the United States, and today the Sino-American relationship is at the center of Beijing's foreign policy.

The relationship between these two countries is much older than most people realize, however. It dates back at least to 1881, the year a 15-year-old Chinese kid named Sun Yat-sen, then studying at Punahou Prep School in Hawaii, was granted U.S. citizenship. This same kid, of course, would go on to become the father of modern China, spending his whole adult life trying to transform a corrupt Middle Kingdom into an Americanized Asian democracy.

Today another Punahou alumnus, Barack Obama, is dominating the news. Should he become the U.S. president, many Chinese will welcome this young and open-minded new leader. But Obama should know that many Chinese were actually rooting for Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic nominee. That's because it was her husband, Bill, who first invited China to join the World Trade Organization and become a full-fledged member of the international community.

This points to one key fact Obama should remember: trade is now central to the U.S.-Chinese relationship. China needs more trade—not just for its economy or its government, but for the sake of its civil society as well. Free trade will strengthen the hand of liberals in Beijing, will help desperate Chinese peasants find jobs and will broaden the perspectives of China's emerging urban middle class. Increased free trade will also weaken China's historical sense of victimhood, which has tended in the past to bring out the worst side of Chinese nationalism.

China's young generation, reared on "South Park," Google and McDonald's, would be shocked if America became a protectionist country. Obama should make sure that doesn't happen.

He should understand the need to set a good example for these young Chinese. China's civil society needs much more support from Washington on issues like political reform, human rights and the environment. But it would be even more effective if the United States stopped violating human rights itself at Guantánamo Bay and started leading the fight against climate change. Such moves would help Obama strengthen China's faith in the American Dream, and would further Chinese aspirations to create a rich and democratic country of their own. That dream was first implanted by one Punahou alumnus a century ago. Now we hope another one will do his part to keep it alive.

Antiis a Chinese political blogger and currently a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

India: The Great Exception
By Shekhar Gupta

Not long ago, David Mulford, the U.S. ambassador to India, visited The Indian Express for its weekly "Idea Exchange" program. A young reporter asked him, "How does it feel to represent a country whose president is the most hated man in the world?"

Mulford wasn't stumped. "President Bush's [approval] ratings in India are twice as high as in America," he said. "I think I'll take that."