How many ways are there to say you’re back? In 2010, Hillary Clinton grabbed Beijing’s lapels when she declared the South China Sea, claimed in its entirety by China, was also a vital American interest. A few weeks ago, the secretary of state published a lengthy piece in Foreign Policy magazine in which she laid out the terms of what she called America’s Pacific Century. And this week, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Honolulu, Barack Obama talked about hardly anything else. “The US is a Pacific power and we’re here to stay,” he said. The message is clear. America is back. And by the way, it never left.
宣告迴歸有多少種方式？2010年，美國國務卿希拉蕊•柯林頓(Hillary Clinton)宣佈，中國宣稱擁有全部主權的南海，也是美國的關鍵利益所在，此舉無異於一把抓住中國政府的衣領當面挑釁。幾周前，希拉里向《外交政策》(Foreign Policy)雜誌長篇撰文，在文中提出了美國的「太平洋世紀」(Pacific Century)這個概念，並進行了闡述。而本週在夏威夷首府檀香山召開的亞太經合組織(APEC)論壇上，巴拉克•歐巴馬(Barack Obama)的話題幾乎就沒有離開過「太平洋世紀」。他說：「美國是太平洋地區的重要一員，我們絕不會離開。」他的意思很清楚：美國迴歸太平洋地區了。順便提一句，它並不曾離開。