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International News Title: Around The World, Concern Over The Global Impact Of U.S. Elections BEIJING - World capitals on Wednesday braced for a new political order in Washington, as policymakers and analysts tried to assess the impact on foreign policy of a new Republican-led U.S. House, a diminished Democratic majority in the Senate and an American president many fear has been left weakened. The midterm elections were watched particularly closely here in China, which emerged as a villain in campaign ads by candidates railing against American jobs being shipped overseas. Some feared congressional Republicans, more mistrustful of China's intentions, would pressure the Obama administration to take a tougher line with Beijing on such issues as technology exports, cooperation on clean energy projects and Chinese subsidies to state-owned companies that put U.S. firms at a disadvantage. "It will be harder to build strategic mutual trust in the coming years," said Sun Zhe, a professor from Tsinghua University's Institute of International Studies. "China will face a tougher Congress." On the opposite side, however, other analysts said they viewed Republicans as stronger supporters of free trade, which might mute the Democrats' tendency toward moves viewed as more "protectionist." Although concerns over the value of China's currency are bipartisan, some said the election results made an all-out trade war far less likely. "With more control by Republicans, I think the Obama administration's policy on China will be softened and more rational," said Su Hao, director of the Strategy and Conflict Management Research Center at China Foreign Affairs University. "Sino-U.S. relations will stabilized in the future." In Moscow, there were fears that emboldened Senate Republicans might make a first test of their new clout the pending START treaty limiting nuclear arms. Although Democrats retained control of the Senate, Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of the magazine Russian Global Politics, said it is clear that the Republicans will push for significant concessions from the administration in return for their support for ratifying the treaty. "The American political situation will become more turbulent and less predictable than before," he said. "It looks like American voters are rushing from one side to another. And the domestic political turbulence in the United States will have a huge impact on the world, Russia included." For decades, going back to the Soviet era, Moscow - much like China - preferred dealing with Republicans in Washington. But after a dramatic worsening of relations during the presidency of George W. Bush, the Kremlin has embraced Obama's "reset." "Mr. Obama is the first American president after the Cold War who was not influenced by Cold War thinking," said Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies, a Moscow think tank. But, like Russia, the United States has a large contingent of people who still have a Cold War outlook, he said. "And the Republicans mainly now represent that part of the population which continues to think in Cold War terms." In the Middle East, and the wider Islamic world, there were questions about whether a domestically weakened Obama would be able to pursue his stated goal of securing in his first term a long-elusive final peace agreement between Israelis and the Palestinians. There was much pre-election commentary in Israel that Republican gains would make it harder for Obama to pressure Israel into making peace concessions in the peace talks with the Palestinians. The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz quoted Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who is expected to become the House majority leader, saying a Republican victory "would have a tangible impact on improving the U.S.-Israel relationship." That was precisely the worry in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, and where Obama - who lived there as a child - is scheduled to visit this month. Masdar Mas'udi, deputy chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim group with 30 million members, said he wanted Obama to vouch for creation of a Palestinian state. "The Palestine issue is the core problem when the radicals or fundamentalist movements emerge," he said. Mas'udi also said he feared the election's result will hamper Obama's outreach efforts to the Muslim world. "We now feel more pessimistic about his ability to solve the problem between the Muslim world and the West," he said. "It's very regretful for me that his power has been decreasing, because we had such strong hopes with him." In Pakistan, early reaction centered on fears that a divided U.S. Congress would take longer to approve military and civilian aid packages for the country. The Obama administration last week announced $2 billion in new military funding over five years for the Pakistani army, but the proposal awaits congressional approval. There were questions in world capitals whether Obama would be too politically weakened at home to pursue major initiatives abroad, or whether, like some of his predecessors in domestic difficulty, he would instead turn his attention more to foreign policy, where presidents still have more unilateral freedom to act. "At the end of the day, a weak president means a weak United States," said Oren Nahar, foreign news editor at Israel Radio, speaking during a radio discussion of the election results. He speculated that the Democratic defeat would make it more difficult for President Obama to take bold steps abroad like striking Iran over its nuclear capability. Much like President Bill Clinton took solace from the Democratic defeat in the 1994 midterms, so does Obama embark this week on a lengthy trip to Asia, where he will be able to put aside temporarily the political setback at home for a turn on the global stage, where he remains widely admired. "I think Obama is still very popular in Moscow power circles, where he's considered to be an extraordinary politician," Lukyanov said. That sentiment is perhaps most pronounced in Kenya, where Obama's father was born, and Indonesia, where he has childhood roots. In Kenya, Obama-mania remains strong, even though some of his star power appears to have lost its luster. In comments posted on the Daily Nation, the nation's most respected national daily, readers were divided over Obama's policies and whether he would win a second term. And in Indonesia, Tin Sumartini Soemitro, sister-in-law to Lolo Soetoro, Obama's stepfather, said, "My opinion might not be objective, but Barry is very smart. As president, him receiving a lot of criticism - it's normal. It happens here, too. A president cannot make everybody happy all the time." But Obama's popularity has plummeted in Pakistan. A Pew Research Center poll this summer found just 8 percent of the public expressed confidence in Obama, the lowest percentage of any Muslim country. "All the hype about hope and change that propelled Obama towards the White House in 2008 never seriously held out the prospect of a systemic overhaul," wrote Mahir Ali, a columnist for Dawn, a leading English-language newspaper. Englund reported from Moscow. Washington Post correspondents Chico Harlan in Jakarta, Janine Zacharia in Jerusalem, Sudarsan Raghavan in Nairobi, David Nakamura in Islamabad researchers Wang Juan in Shanghai and Liu Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
So much for the both parties are the same sales pitch.
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