U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to China — the most important leg of her trip to Asia, which included Japan, Indonesia and South Korea — went off well, in part because she had indicated publicly ahead of time that differences over human rights would not be allowed to inhibit progress on other matters.
As a result, she was able to reach her objective, which was to demonstrate to China the seriousness of the Obama administration's intention to maintain good relations with it and to work together with Beijing to tackle global issues.
Clinton succeeded in showing that the new U.S. administration has no intention to treat China as an antagonist, despite the gaffe by Timothy Geithner who, before he was confirmed as Treasury secretary, had said that President Barack Obama considered China a manipulator of its currency. If the Obama administration had persisted along that course, it would have been very difficult to expect Chinese cooperation on global issues.