World

The Whole World Is Watching

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 8, 2000 / 9:44 AM EST / CBS

The eventual results of the presidential elections in the U.S. are also of great interest around the world.

While British newspapers aren't famous for cautious understatement, Wednesday they seemed to have gotten it right, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

British TV closely followed the election all night. The BBC's flashy graphics put Gov. George W. Bush in the White House Oval office moments after Americans got the same news.

But even as that outcome was thrown into some doubt, Britain was quick to deny any misgivings.

"I'm not the slightest worried," said Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. "George Bush is firmly within the mainstream of foreign policy and tradition."

Why the reassurance? One London newspaper Tuesday headlined "Don't Dump Dubya On Us," complaining that the Texas governor lacks foreign policy experience.

What the British government is saying is that Bush has advisers with depth of experience in international affairs...and that if it turns out he has been elected, he'll be able to quickly establish his authority as president.

It was the kind of complimentary comment a lot of foreign officials were making Wednesday morning.

Foreign leaders wasted no time in sending Bush messages of congratulations, reports CBS News Correspondent Tom Rivers. Within minutes of the unofficial television predictions, politicians in Russia, China, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, the European Union, Turkey, Indonesia and Australia all issued congratulatory statements.

Then they were all sending off frantic retraction telegrams.

The Dutch government has now said it's withdrawn its message. Others seem to be waiting to figure out what to say — to whom.

Among the first off the mark (and then back on it) was German President Johannes Rau, whose message to Bush said: "We know you as a good friend of our country and look forward to the continuation of close friendship of our people during your time in office."

Minutes later, Rau's spokesman was scrambling to stop the congratulatory telegram from hitting news wires.

"What can we do? It is complicated. One wants to be among the first sending congratulations and warm wishes," the German spokesman said.

Russia and China had each swiftly indicated they were willing to work with the new Republican president.

The deputy head of the Kremlin administration, Sergei Prikhodko, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying Russia hoped for "mutual advantageous dialogue and joint action with the new American administration."

The report by Xinhua news agency of China's congratulations to Bush did not give any indication of how officials thought a Bush presidency might affect relations between the two countries.

Japan's congratulations were effusive.

"We welcome from the bottom of our hearts Bush's victory in the presidential election," Hiromu Nonaka, secretary general of the uling Liberal Democratic Party, said in a statement.

European financial markets were in as much turmoil as the politicians, spiking up and down as the political drama across the Atlantic unfolded.

Stock exchanges, which have been rooting for a Bush victory, surrendered initial gains, while bonds, which feared that the Republican candidate's tax plans would whip up inflation, clawed back their losses.

"I think we've just gone back a few hours. It's a negative that we just don't know," said Richard Davidson, European strategist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

Some U.S. players had said the market would rally, regardless of who won the election.

While television stations and financial markets could row back on earlier assumptions, newspapers had an impossible job trying to keep up with fast moving events.

"Bush Wins" said London's Evening Standard in its bold front page headline.

One of South Africa's biggest circulation newspapers, The Star, issued an afternoon edition emblazoned with the headline "Bush is President."

Center-left governments hold power in most European Union countries and many senior politicians were rooting for a Gore victory. But facing an apparent Bush triumph, only Sweden openly expressed regrets.

"It's a pity, but that is the wish of the American people and we have to work with their choice. I look forward to that," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said before confusion set in.

Overseas commentators have been saying that the campaign has given few hints about the future direction of U.S. policy, reports Roth, and that's a concern to them. While Vice President Gore tends to be regarded more as an activist, more interventionist — "more muscular" is the way some put it — Bush is relatively unknown and this worries some Europeans that, for example, he'll be reluctant to commit U.S. forces to foreign peacekeeping.