Jon Huntsman Jr. Quotes
With a weak and rotting core, you don't have much of a foreign policy. You're discounted at the negotiating table, economically and militarily. So when people ask what's the best course of action for the U.S.-China relationship, I can give you ten academic responses. But the reality is we need to rebuild our core.
Huntsman, Jon, Jr. "Jon Huntsman's 2012 Presidential Announcement Speech." The Washington Post, 21 June 2011.
China, which had been one of the strongest and most modern nations in the world for 1000 years had lapsed into decay and though a huge nation, rich in resources, with more people than any other had been eclipsed by Japan, America and Europe. Cixi was determined to remedy that, and to a great extent started China on the road to modernization which would take over 100 years more.
With reference to foreign trade:
During her adult life, she was the de facto ruler of China. This quotation is very important because it gives us an important insight into Chinese motives and historical drivers. The first reason is something almost all countries and cultures can identify with, but the second--to avoid being looked down—was just as important. Americans are relatively uncaring what the citizens of other countries think about them, but the Chinese do. So do other nationalities and cultures like the Arabs, the Iranians, many of the South American cultures. Often it takes on a different world like “dignity” or “respect”.
Jon Meade Huntsman Jr. is an American businessman, diplomat and politician who served as the 16th Governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the Ambassador of the United States to Russia from 2017 to 2019, to China from 2009 to 2011, and to Singapore from 1992 to 1993.
