In her first overseas trip as secretary of state, during the last week of February 2009, Hillary Clinton toured Japan, South Korea and Indonesia, as well as China, where she explicitly appealed to Beijing to continue to purchase U.S. Treasury notes. Stating that the U.S. and Chinese economies are “so intertwined,” she aimed to convince China to continue investing its foreign exchange reserves in U.S. Treasury securities in order to help finance the $787 billion U.S. stimulus package. Clinton asserted: “We are truly going to rise or fall together. By continuing to support American Treasury instruments, the Chinese are recognizing our interconnection.”

China already holds approximately $700 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds, and as Su Chang, an economist working with the Beijing-based CEBM consulting group, told the AFP news agency, if China “ceased to buy U.S. treasuries, the value of existing holdings of dollar-denominated assets would drop sharply.” However, he emphasized that “if China continues to buy them, it needs to worry about the possible depreciation of the dollar in future.” China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi did not specifically address Clinton's plea concerning Beijing's continued buying of U.S. Treasury bonds; instead, he merely said that his country sought safe, high-value and liquid investments for its foreign currency reserves. Meanwhile, there is growing popular demand for China to invest in its own country to help alleviate increasingly painful domestic problems: some 26 million Chinese migrant workers have already lost their jobs and 670,000 businesses have shut down due to collaps¬ing export markets.

As evidence of India's rising economic power, while the rest of the world struggles with a global financial crisis, this country's trillion-dollar economy has continued to grow. In March 2009, India reported that its economy had grown 5.3% in the last quarter of 2008, and 7.6% in the third quarter of the same year. These numbers contrast dramatically with the gross domestic product (GDP) contraction at an annualized rate of 6.2% in the U.S. for the end of 2008 and an annual rate of 12.7% in Japan. In addition, many of India's economic policies have helped it remain relatively immune to the global credit crisis, and because of its high savings rate, around 35%, it has saved about $200 billion a year, which now needs to be deployed.

However, not all areas experienced economic growth; both agriculture and manufacturing contracted during the last quarter of 2008. And analysts also cautioned against optimistic forecasts not taking into account the fact that a great deal of India's immunity to the global financial crisis is based on its reliance on remittances from abroad. India receives over $20 billion a year in cash sent back from relatives working in foreign countries—the world's largest amount. As the loss of jobs globally increases, the amount of money sent home to India might dramatically decrease. Yet, executives in India remain confident of their country's economic tenacity. Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, recently stated to his colleagues: “It is reasonable to assume that India will be among the first to recover when the recovery starts.”

Secretary of State Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks on Mar. 5, 2009, to discuss their countries' evolving relationship. The goal for the talks was to “reset” the relationship between the U.S. and Russia from the tone set by the Bush Administration. The International Herald Tribune cites a senior U.S. official who stated the main goal of the meeting was to push Russia to “do more to curb the threat from Iran,” which currently supplies nuclear technology and antiaircraft missiles to that country. It also recently signed a contract to provide Iran with longer-range S-300 missiles, which could be used by Iran to defend its nuclear facilities from a U.S. or Israeli attack.

Although the talks did not produce any formal agreements, and there remained disagreements on the independence of Kosovo and Russia's war with Georgia in the summer of 2008, Lavrov stated, “I think we can manage to arrive at a common view, both in the context of strategic offensive weapons and missile defense.” Clinton reiterated Lavrov's point when she said: “We intend to have an agreement by the end of the year.” Clinton and Lavrov agreed to begin a “work plan” that will lead to negotiations on a strategic arms reduction treaty to replace Start I, due to expire Dec. 31, 2009.