Hillary Clinton: Weight of the world on her shoulders

When Hillary Clinton touches down in New Zealand next Friday she will have been United States Secretary of State for a little less than a year. That she is visiting so soon in her term speaks volumes of the United States' new emphasis on diplomatic engagement under Barack Obama's presidency, especially in the Asia-Pacific area where it rivals China for influence.

Condoleezza Rice was in New Zealand in July 2008, but the visit was in the dying months of George W Bush's eight-year Administration; it had been 10 years since the previous visit by a Secretary of State and 12 years since the one before that.

New Zealand is used to being down the queue. The last time a Secretary of State gave New Zealand urgency was July 15, 1984, when George Shultz hurtled over from Sydney the day after Labour was elected on a policy promise to ban nuclear powered or armed ships. The nuclear promise was kept and it led to formal reprisals and a diplomatic ice age that was more or less maintained by the US until 2006.

The thaw formally began in 2006 and now the melt is having a blowtorch applied by the United States.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has been to Washington twice and last time, in October, Clinton announced that intelligence sharing co-operation between New Zealand and the US has been restored. She is expected to announce further measures in her visit next week.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have outlined the new American approach globally as "a new era of engagement". That means inviting countries like Iran to the table to talk about its nuclear programme before working on sanctions - and wearing the risk of looking weak if Iran ignores the invitation, as it has.

Unilateralism is out; partnerships are in - to tackle the same global threats that most nations worry about such as nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and disease. They are partnerships the American way, though - to be led by America.

"The question is not whether our nation can or should lead," Clinton said in a major Washington speech in July, "but how it will lead in the 21st century."

In this new bid to engage more fully, Obama and Clinton are careful to counter any notion that the US has gone soft, that it no longer sees itself as the superpower that could use its might in a flash.

"We will not hesitate to defend our friends, our interests and above all our people vigorously and when necessary with the world's strongest military," Clinton said - and that was a promise, not a threat.

"Our willingness to talk is not a sign of weakness to be exploited. President Obama has led us to think outside the usual boundaries."