US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Beijing on the final leg of her Asian journey – the first one in her new post.

While the visit might bring no breakthrough decisions or statements, the very choice of Asian countries as the destination for her first significant foreign trip indicates the direction of the foreign policy shift.

Her predecessors in the post all made extensive trips to Eastern and Western Europe indicating the primary international objective of the US administration – to strengthen and expand NATO and also to secure the positions in the former Communist countries and Soviet republics. At the same time, more complicated questions, first of all relations with Russia were not usually touched upon during these first trips.

Hillary Clinton's first foreign travel is in line with this tradition. US positions in countries like South Korea and Japan, and even Indonesia are solid and clear. The visit to China, however, is different. The country has recently suspended the military co-operation with the US over arms supplies to Taiwan and economic relations between Beijing and Washington are under threat due to China's fears of American protectionism. The human rights issue, which is traditionally brought up by members of the US Democratic Party is also an unsolved problem.

So at first glance, her visit to China might look as an indication that Clinton is ready to deal with the most acute problems of US foreign policy straight away, but there are certain limitations to her initiatives.

First, the military contacts with China and the unresolved Taiwan problem are regulated very strictly by the so-called six assurances – foreign policy guidelines that guarantee a stable
supply of arms from the US to Taiwan and also state that the US will not mediate in China-Taiwan affairs. Without breaking these guidelines there is little Clinton can do to improve the military relations with China that suffered a severe blow in the autumn last year after the US decided to supply Taiwan with US $6.5 billion worth of weapons, including attack helicopters and anti-aircraft missiles.