Clinton's Bypass A Snub? (AUSTRALIA)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making Asia her first destination as America's top diplomat. That she is skipping Canberra on a trip that includes stops in Tokyo, Jakarta, Seoul and Beijing is not a slight. But it should provoke some strategic thinking in Australia and the US about the future of a long and unique relationship.

First, it is important to understand that Clinton's trip is more about diplomatic turf in Washington than it is about new diplomatic initiatives.

Canberra need not worry about being left out of a tour that is meant to define a portfolio for the new secretary, who must compete against a bevy of other foreign policy luminaries in the Obama administration.

An unspoken reason for the trip is one of Washington's endless bureaucratic struggles, in this case recovering the China account for the State Department, which had been forced to cede it to the Treasury in the previous administration. The need for this arose as other top-billed diplomatic missions in the Obama administration were assigned to high-profile special envoys. Clinton also must compete for turf against Vice-President Joe Biden, who previously chaired the Senate's foreign policy committee, and a White House national security adviser and UN ambassador who have plenty of their own ideas on foreign policy.

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