In her first official trip overseas, Hillary Rodham Clinton showed herself to be a different kind of Secretary of State for a different time. She broke with almost half a century of tradition in choosing Asia rather than Europe or the Middle East for her initial voyage, going to countries not only where American prestige is largely intact but whose help with the global economic crisis is, as she put it, ‘‘indispensable.’’ Throughout her tour of Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China, it might be said that Clinton aggressively projected a nonconfrontational foreign policy -- and rightly so.

... Furthermore, the United States isn’t in a position right now to extol the virtues of American capitalism. Clinton could hardly urge less state intervention in the economy and currency exchange liberalization when the U.S. financial system has seized up and the government is practically nationalizing banks. And especially not when asking China to keep buying U.S. debt on top of the more than $600 billion it already owns.

So what did she do? Clinton used President Obama’s popularity and the force of her personality to try to restore America’s standing abroad.

... It was a successful first foray by the secretary of State. She’ll have other opportunities to use the moral and political force of a superpower -- once this country has regained its standing -- to address human rights abuses in China.