Understanding, but Not Sympathy: The View From Abroad : THAILAND

“The gadfly appearance of the billionaire populist Ross Perot in the early part of the campaign showed one thing: significant discontent with the current direction of the United States. Perot’s protectionist demands won large support in a nation losing its lead in many fields of industrial production. Many Americans are content to blame others for their dual inability to remain competitive and find new economic trails to blaze.”

-- Editorial, Bangkok Post

PHILIPPINES

“Bush and the Republicans have taken a dislike to us--partly out of the snub delivered by former President Cory Aquino to Bush’s confidante and crony, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (who took the snub personally), and the (Philippine) Senate’s rejection of the U.S. bases . . . . The Democrats, on the other hand, might be better inclined to seek a new kind of relationship with Manila.”

-- Max V. Soliven in the Philippine Star

“There is a distinct possibility that American voters might sweep Clinton into the White House rather than Bush, whom they see as lacking in vision and creativity. Clinton, with his high sense of idealism coupled with a hard-edged work ethic, may just be what America needs to pluck it from the doldrums.”

-- Ricardo Malay in the Manila Chronicle

SINGAPORE

“For a Singaporean entering a big melting pot from a tinier one, the violence is like a chilling tap on the shoulder--a reminder that a polyethnic society is fragile and artificially held together . . . . Americans scoff but Angelenos prefer to think that their curious horizontal city is democratic. Democratic? Or perhaps so dissected that people can live there all their lives and never once see South-Central, flash point of the riots, because the freeways bypass it?”

-- Lee Siew Hua in the Straits Times, after visiting the United States on a fellowship.

JAPAN

“ ‘I said that I had understanding and respect for the people of the U.S.,’ said Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, denying use of the word sympathy in discussing U.S. problems with President Bush.”

-- News report, Daily Yomiuri

“ ‘Many of the serious presidential candidates have stayed away from making the trade issue an inflammatory national issue in the American campaign,’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Masamichi Hanabusa told foreign correspondents. ‘I think it is a very gratifying phenomenon.’ ”

-- News report, Mainichi Daily News

NEW ZEALAND

“Just 18 months after he rode a wave of post-Gulf War euphoria, U.S. President George Bush is taking a hammering in the polls. Americans, in the maelstrom of a recession making thousands jobless, are turning on the man who restored their military pride after the fiasco of Vietnam, and demanding new policies. George Bush, they say, may have set in place a new world order but they would prefer a new domestic order that gives Americans jobs and meets the challenge of the inner cities; in other words, lets them share in the peace dividend delivered by the end of the Cold War.”

-- Editorial, Waikato Times

AUSTRALIA

“Bush says he is in a ‘non-campaign mode’ until after the Republican Convention and that is not as recklessly laid back as it sounds. Clinton is the man who has to introduce himself and his policies to voters across the U.S. After four years in the White House, Bush can afford to take things easier at this state. Moreover, with the economy in recession and voters generally disillusioned, Bush can’t hope to win in a landslide. His best bet is to go for a low turnout race and hope that enough people vote in the right places to enable him to scrape home.”

-- Editorial, Sydney Morning Herald

HONG KONG

“Clinton’s comment during his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in New York that the U.S. needed a government that ‘does not coddle tyrants from Baghdad to Beijing’ has convinced many Chinese officials that he will be a tough customer to deal with.”

-- News report, South China Morning Post

“American political conventions--the Republicans were way ahead of the Democrats on this score--are now scripted as carefully as a Chinese Communist Party Congress, more propaganda than news.”

-- Marlowe Hood, in the South China Morning Post