The Norwegian Nobel Committee has unexpectedly awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama. While many of Obama's supporters would have seen him as an excellent potential candidate for the prize, few would have predicted that he would win it prize so early in his presidency. Obama's right-wing opponents, on the other hand, will be as displeased today about his award as they were pleased only a week ago when his hometown of Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. The Nobel Committee announced its surprise decision Oct. 9 as follows:

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges'."

The Nobel Committee's stunning decision is certain to throw Obama's right-wing opponents at home into quivering fits of self-righteous rage. They'll tie themselves in knots trying to put a negative spin on Obama's award, probably with something along the lines of it being a politically-motivated faux award from a bunch of "European socialists" to one of their own Godless ilk, or even an "affirmative action" award. They'll also read the committee's comments on the "more constructive role" America is now playing on the world stage as a slap in the face to their own previous Republican administration, perhaps suggesting that Obama won the award simply for not being George W. Bush. Right-wing Republican dead-enders will be full of nothing but hate, both for Nobel laureate Barack Obama and for the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

All I have to say is: Congratulations, Mr. President.

Details on US President Barack Obama's upcoming Asian tour released in a White House press briefing Oct. 7 indicate that the president's anticipated China visit will include stops Nov. 15-18 in both Beijing and Shanghai. While in China, according to the briefing, Obama will hold his third bilateral meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (pictured here with Obama) to discuss ways of addressing challenges and expanding cooperation on key regional and global issues including security, nuclear nonproliferation, energy, and climate change. While no further details on the president's China visit were released, his Shanghai stop could include an inspection of the $61 million US pavilion currently under construction for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

President Obama's Asian tour coincides with his participation in the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit Nov. 13-15 in Singapore. Following his departure from Washington Nov. 11 according to the briefing, the president will visit Japan Nov. 12 and 13, meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama before traveling on to Singapore for the APEC summit. Following the summit, Obama will travel on to China; then to Seoul, South Korea, where his visit Nov. 18-19 will include meetings both with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and with US service members before returning home to Washington. There is no word in the briefing as to whether the president plans any public events during his tour or if he will be accompanied by his family.

Obama's meeting with Hu Jintao during his China visit will be his third since taking office, the two having previously met in London in April and in New York in September. China Daily reports today that the Chinese president will likely urge his US counterpart to abandon what China considers acts of trade protectionism such as Obama's recent approval of a 35% import tariff on tires from China. The US president, meanwhile, is likely to press his Chinese counterpart on reaching a bilateral climate change agreement. The North Korean nuclear issue is also likely to be an important topic of discussion with Hu as well as with leaders in Japan and South Korea. 

(See also: Reuters, BBC)

President of the United States Barack Obama has nominated Shanghai-based attorney David Huebner to serve as the next US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Mr. Huebner is a partner in the Shanghai office of US law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, where he specializes in international arbitration and mediation as head of the firm's China Practice and International Disputes Practice. A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, he has taught at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law and lectured both at Qinghua University and at East China University of Politics and Law on international dispute resolution and intellectual property issues. An accomplished legal scholar, Mr. Huebner has published and spoken widely in the US, Asia, and Europe on international dispute resolution topics, and has been named on numerous best practitioners lists, including IP Almanac (Best Lawyers), Super Lawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. He has also chaired the California Law Revision Commission, served as president of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission, and served in Tokyo as special assistant to the Honorable Koji Kakizawa, member of the lower house of the Japanese Diet and former Foreign Minister of Japan. President Obama's first openly gay ambassadorial nominee, Mr. Huebner is also the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's general counsel and has previously served on the group's board. If confirmed by the US Senate, Mr. Huebner will bring a wealth of global experience and legal scholarship to his new post as US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

As an American living and working abroad I watched President Obama's speech at the United Nations General Assembly with great pride and more than a little relief:

Pride, following the shame of our previous administration's arrogant unilateralism; and relief, that our previous administration wasn't followed by another just like it or worse. All too well as an American abroad I recall the embarrassment of being represented on the world stage by a tactless, insensitive president who seemed to possess little more than a child's understanding of the world.

President Obama's speech at the UN General Assembly, on the other hand, was that of a true statesman and a world leader of the highest caliber, with no apologies and no excuses. I think it was among the best speeches of his career thus far.

Any criticism of it by his political opponents in the United States amounts to nothing but sour grapes and a sad attempt to deny their own disastrous failure of the past eight years.

(Letters, New York Times, Sept. 25, 2009)

SHANGHAI, CHINA-While strolling through the shopping arcades surrounding Shanghai's sixteenth-century Yu Garden this afternoon, I happened upon a t-shirt shop prominently displaying one shirt (pictured below) featuring the smiling image of US president Barack Obama beside other shirts including images of Che Guevara and Chairman Mao. Were such a juxtaposition of Obama, Guevara, and Mao to appear at a t-shirt shop in the United States, it would only serve to confirm for Obama's detractors that he is indeed some sort of Communist. Were it to appear at a t-shirt shop, say, in some left-wing mecca like my own San Francisco or Berkeley, I suppose it would surprise no one. Its appearance at a t-shirt shop in Mao's own People's Republic of China, however, struck me as something a little special.

When the president visits China in mid-November as planned, he may face an audience as tough as any he has faced at home. Obama's recent decision on behalf of the United Auto Workers union to impose a 35% tariff on tire imports from China has angered many Chinese and prompted calls for in-kind retaliatory measures against the United States. Unlike the president's fans in Europe, Africa, and even the Middle East, many pragmatic Chinese view US affairs strictly through the prism of how America's actions affect China's material interests, and will not be swayed by the kind of grand statements on world peace and brotherhood among men that so electrified his audiences in Berlin and Cairo. Nonetheless, admiration for Obama remains strong among the more idealistic youth of China, and here in front of me today was my president's image on a Chinese t-shirt.

I have been visiting China since 1991, and have spent altogether about a year and a half living in Shanghai; and this is the first time in China I have ever seen a US president's image on a t-shirt. I have also seen pirate DVD editions of Obama's speeches for sale on the street, and at my university have seen Chinese professors showing Obama's speeches to classrooms full of attentive students. My own students also seem to hold Obama, not merely in admiration, but even in a kind of awe. More than any other recent US president, Obama seems to be seen - at least among many young people in China - not merely as the president of one powerful overseas nation, but as a world leader perhaps of unprecedented importance, and from whom much is expected.

Of course, even older and less idealistic Chinese will tell you that Obama is "better than Bush." To his good fortune, Obama's immediate predecessor was one against whom it would be rather easy to win a popularity contest anywhere in the world except perhaps in Israel. Being "better than Bush" still serves Obama well, and probably will for some time to come. Despite the tendency here (at least for the average Zhou Six-Pack or Zhou the Plumber) to view US actions more-or-less exclusively on the basis of how they affect China, both Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq and his arrogant behavior with the world at-large made him immensely unpopular here. Just as Obama is the first US president whose image I've ever seen on a Chinese t-shirt, Bush was the first I've ever heard people in China tell me they just couldn't stand the sight of.

Despite his current troubles at home and abroad, however, Obama has far more going for him than the mere fact that he isn't George W. Bush. Appealing to the youth of China may be the key to his success here, and come November, I would hope to see many of China's youth wearing t-shirts like the one I saw today.

Perhaps I'll even see Zhou the Plumber wearing one.