Caroline Kennedy arrives in Australia to take up ambassador post

Many of Biden's diplomatic nominations have been delayed by Republican rivals in the now hyper-partisan Senate.

The hyper-partisan Senate has been this way for a long time and is by design so as to prevent any one party from gaining control and changing things too quickly. As for Ambassador Kennedy I wish her the best of luck in her new post.

there will be no difference at all and even famous name cant change it.influence of China in region will grow and USA have no effective tools to stop it.

Sounds like a nice job.

Yep. Definitely prefer that to being the Ambassador here.

vowing to end a period of U.S. "absence" in a region increasingly influenced by China.

it is not US area and one in six people in the whole world are actually Chinese and live “in the region”.

vowing to end a period of U.S. "absence" in a region increasingly influenced by China.

It's trade and economics. Diplomacy is based on that and not the other way around.

A ship carrying Australian iron ore docked in China’s Shandong 山東 province last week. What was special about this load is that the transaction was carried out in Chinese yuan and not in US dollars.

She was a darling of the HN public and media when she was the ambassador here but not at all liked by her own DoS staff at the Tokyo embassy. Hope she fares better in Oz.

Yep. Definitely prefer that to being the Ambassador here.

Would prefer being an ambassador even in Kim Country NK.

Nice job, live with ease out of the fat of the land.

it is not US area and one in six people in the whole world are actually Chinese and live “in the region”.

Ahhhh! “the region”.

That “region” ain’t China, my man, though Mr. Xi might like to make it so.

Re: the new US Ambassador to Oz; I’ll bet she gives dynamite Christmas parties.

Good luck to her! She’ll have to sink some cold ones with us locals, hope she can keep up.

@Rodney, the ‘region’ is the South Pacific not South East Asia mate.

Hope she does a better job down under than she did in Japan.

USNinJapan2 01:01 pm JST

She was a darling of the HN public and media when she was the ambassador here but not at all liked by her own DoS staff at the Tokyo embassy.

Any particular reason for that? The Kennedys seemed like the closest thing the US had to a royal family for many years and she certainly seemed very media-savvy.

@Rodney

It is not US area

Sure it is. The state of Hawaii, an also the US territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands like Saipan, and the three Freely Associated States (FAS) nations. 

Plenty of US territories in this region.

it is not US area and one in six people in the whole world are actually Chinese and live “in the region”.

The pacific is not China's region. The Pacific region belongs to those who live there and have sovereignty there. China doesnt, the US has some territories there but it belongs to the Islander nations and New Zealand with Australia also having a vested interest. China atempts to gain influence through having it's citizens emigrate and set up businesses and through that tries to claim rights it does not have. The islanders may like the additional income but they do not bow to China and have little respect for the CCP. That is not likely to change.

The Islanders do not want to get involved in power struggles of those outside their region, and will resist power games, preferring to worry about their own concerns like rising sea levels, employment and stability.

Her arrival comes more than halfway through President Joe Biden's term

Actually, her arrival comes about a third of the way through Joe Biden's term. It may be a small point, but why does a paid AFP journalist write a line like this without checking (or caring) if it's correct? And why does their editor let it remain?

I'd like to apologize to all Australians for sending her. Nothing about her professional qualifications, just as a person. I'm not exactly happy that she was the former head of the DMC either.

A leftist publication wrote:

She is often sarcastic when she talks to the press, and she can be short to the point of rudeness. She is easily annoyed by what she perceives to be prying or stupid questions.

I apologize.

@yamada1043

Another bad choice by the Biden Administration …. but, not as bad as the choice of U. S. Ambassador to Japan

Japan ambassadorship is known as comp post in the US; a place to dump big time donors or undesirable political figures due to relative unimportance of Japan in US foreign policy. Caroline Kennedy got the job for her endorsement of Obama during early days of his presidential run, Bill Hagerty was a big time donor to Trump campaign, and Rahm Emanuel was a troublesome Obama ally that Biden wanted to get rid of from US politics for a while.

By comparison, Korea ambassadorship is always filled by military and intelligence officials due to the grave importance of Korea to US national security.

it is not US area and one in six people in the whole world are actually Chinese and live “in the region”.

After having to fight the Japanese across those islands it is very much an area the US has deep interests in. China by comparison played no part in running Japanese forces out of those islands. Your idol Mao was hiding in northern China biding his time until the Soviets ran the Japanese out of China.

The pacific is not China's region. The Pacific region belongs to those who live there and have sovereignty there. China doesnt, the US has some territories there but it belongs to the Islander nations and New Zealand with Australia also having a vested interest

Both the US and China have long coastlines facing the Pacific Ocean and a considerable amount of their foreign trade crosses that ocean. Both nations have legitimate interests in the Pacific. The same is true for Australia and New Zealand. The problem is that China makes territorial claims to broad swaths of ocean that are not allowed under international maritime law, not just UNCLOS but maritime law that pre-dates UNCLOS by centuries.

 The Pacific region belongs to those who live there and have sovereignty there.

Well keep in mind that territorial sovereignty extends only 12 nautical miles from the shoreline. Beyond that the ships of any nation are free to use the ocean. A nation may control resources out to 200 nautical miles from their shoreline in their Economic Enforcement Zone or EEZ, but beyond that any nation may fish or mine the seabed. That leaves most of the Pacific Ocean as international waters any nation may use. Those island nations do not have sovereignty over the whole of the Pacific, only their territorial waters and they have no rights to control resources beyond their EEZs. Please keep your expectations realistic.

theFuJuly 23  04:10 am JST

I'd like to apologize to all Australians for sending her. Nothing about her professional qualifications, just as a person. I'm not exactly happy that she was the former head of the DMC either.

What's the DMC? Do you mean DNC, Democratic National Committe, of which she was not a chair or head, as you refer to it.

A leftist publication wrote:

She is often sarcastic when she talks to the press, and she can be short to the point of rudeness. She is easily annoyed by what she perceives to be prying or stupid questions.

You seem to have left out the bit that says "Caroline Kennedy has a magic about her that is very useful in politcs and her party have always used it". So, she doesn't like the press? Given her family's history, that's hardly suprising, is it? And, are you seriously calling CNN leftist?

I apologize.

Australia doesn't need your apology. She'll be fine. They'll be fine.