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Behind closed doors, Palin pushes for US-China ties

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-24 09:07

HONG KONG: Sarah Palin, accused during her 2008 US vice presidential campaign of having a limited knowledge of foreign affairs, yesterday traveled to Hong Kong to push for stronger ties and trade with China.

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Palin, making her first visit to the region, criticized US President Barack Obama's administration over health care reforms, spending and imposing duties on Chinese tires.

She described the Obama administration's move this month to impose additional duties on Chinese-made tires as "perhaps a mistake".

"That sends a message to China that the US is going to play tough, which is great, but at a time of recession we don't want to get into any kind of trade war right now either," she said.

China hotly protested the decision and launched its own anti-dumping investigation of automotive and chicken parts imports from the United States, whose combined value was roughly equivalent to the value of the contested tire shipments.

Palin's speech to a packed audience of financial professionals in the former British colony was closed to media, but Reuters obtained a tape-recording.

The event marked her first major public appearance since abruptly resigning as governor in July.

Some Republicans would like to see her run for president in 2012, while party elders consider her a key power-broker able to rally conservative voters with her folksy, down-to-earth values as a working mother of five.

Palin didn't clarify what her plans might be in her speech, which attacked the widening US fiscal deficit and Obama's health care reforms.

"It's just common sense to realize the government's attempts to solve large problems like the health care challenges that we have, more often creates new ones."

"If you want real job growth, you cut taxes and reduce marginal tax rates on all Americans ... Cut payroll taxes, eliminate capital gains taxes, slay the death tax," she said.

"Get federal spending under control then you step back and you watch the US economy roar back to life."

Reuters