OXFORD
– With America less than six weeks away from electing a new president,
voters are following the campaign with tremendous interest.
And apparently, so is the rest of the world.
“The
level of interest is extremely high in Japan,” said Yoichi Kato of the
Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun. “The choices America makes have a
big impact on the rest of the world. There are a lot of people in many
countries who depend on the United States. In a sense, American voters
are voting on behalf of the world.”
Kato is one of four international journalists who spoke to an audience packed in Overby Auditorium during a panel discussion Tuesday evening. More than 300 people came out to hear firsthand how this election is viewed in Japan, India, Australia and the Netherlands. Sponsored by the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, the panel was one of many academic events celebrating the Sept. 26 presidential debate.
The fervor of the U.S. election rings familiar to Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent for The Australian. In that nation’s 2007 federal elections, polls showed a dead heat between incumbent John Howard and rival Kevin Rudd. Rudd rode a populist youth vote to victory, Elliott said.
“Rudd tapped into a generational shift,” Elliott said. “I think Obama is certainly tapping into the same type of movement.”
The panelists confirmed some things most Americans already know. Obama is tremendously popular in Europe, as evidenced by a speech in Berlin that attracted more than 200,000 people. “In Holland, people want Obama to win. The only unfair thing to them is that they have no vote,” joked Derk Jan Eppink, of the Dutch magazine, Opinio, as well as the Flemish magazine, Trends.
Meanwhile, McCain’s foreign policy credentials earn him points across the pond as well, Eppink added. “People in Poland, Georgia and the Baltic Nations prefer John McCain and the Republicans, because they stood up to Russia,” he said.
But the panel also revealed some surprises. For instance, as unpopular as President George Bush is in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, he’s still well liked in India and Japan.
“Republicans are not unpopular in India,” said Anirudh Bhattacharrya of Network 18, India’s largest TV network. “George Bush could probably run for president in India and win in a landslide.”
“In eastern and southeast Asia, Bush hasn’t made so many mistakes, so he’s not as unpopular in Asis as he is elsewhere,” Kato explained. “Most government officials in Asia want McCain to win.”
As expected, each nation has its own concerns about America’s relationship to the world, for different reasons. Both Elliott and Kato said that China’s rise as an economic power is a key factor in global politics. Eppink said that anti-Americanism is more prominent in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, where many nations rely on U.S. support against a resurgent Russia. And India is wary of its unstable nuclear neighbor, Pakistan, Bhattacharrya said.
One thing all the journalists agreed on was that the world is counting on the U.S. government to be a world leader – strategically, economically and morally.
“The deterioration of American leadership is haunting Japan just like it’s haunting Australia,” Kato said. “We don’t have strategic options other than the U.S.; Japan can’t form alliances with China or Russia. So it’s important to have high-quality leadership from the U.S.”
For more about the Croft Institute, visit http://www.croft.olemiss.edu . For more about the presidential debate, visit http://debate.olemiss.edu .