I was reading Paul Blustein's The Chastening, his book on the Asian financial crisis published in 2001, and came across the following passage:
"How does it feel to be a superpower?" Timothy Geithner, the U.S. Treasury's assistant secretary for international affairs, whispered jokingly to Eisuke Sakakibara, the Japanese vice minister of finance…Japan [with the bailout of Thailand] now was eager to show that it could take care of its Asian neighbors the same way Washington had helped its most important neighbor in Latin America [Mexico]…The lighthearted comment by Geithner masked an underlying tension between the United States and Japan that would intensify in the coming weeks as the crisis unfolded. Washington wasn't adding a penny to the Thai package…in part because they feared the IMF's central role in crisis-fighting might be undermined.
I’m reading this book for the first time recently and I was struck by that line too. Somehow it’s hard for me to imagine Sakakibara not hearing condescension and arrogance in Geithner’s words, and it somehow seems revealing of Geithner’s character.
If, of course, the exchange actually happened as described.
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