Posted on 01/10/2004 4:52:52 PM PST by fatso
Top U.S. General Making Highest-Level Military Visit to China During Bush Administration
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. military ties with China have been slow to recover from the forced landing of a Navy spy plane on a Chinese island more than two years ago. But the prospect of closer military relations as well as Washington's push to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program are among the chief reasons for a trip to Asia by the top U.S. general.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left Saturday for a tour that will take him to Japan, Mongolia, China and Australia.
Myers' predecessor, Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, visited China in May 1997. No other Joint Chiefs chairman has gone to China since the early 1980s.
China is wary of U.S. intentions in Asia and the Pacific, most notably regarding Taiwan, the island that split from the mainland after the communist revolution in October 1949.
China insists Taiwan must reunite and periodically threatens to do it by force if necessary. The United States officially holds to a one-China policy but is pledged to ensure that Taiwan can defend itself.
"Myers' trip comes at a good time in U.S.-China relations," but also at a time of substantial risk of a confrontation over Taiwan's ambitions for independence, said Ashton Carter, who was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during the Clinton administration.
Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, has declared that an immediate security threat from China exists. He has announced that the island will hold a referendum March 20 - the day Chen seeks re-election - on whether China should stop pointing hundreds of missiles at Taiwan.
Beijing believes self-ruled Taiwan is part of China and fears the Taiwan electorate might vote to reject this sacred belief and chose a permanent split.
For China, even referenda on mundane issues threaten to lead the island to an independence vote, which Beijing has threatened to stop by force. To the chagrin of conservatives in Congress, the administration has criticized the referendum plans.
Bush's Pentagon has been highly skeptical of the value of military cooperation with China.
Relations sank to new lows in April 2001, when Chinese fighter pilot Wang Wei flew his jet too close to the U.S. reconnaissance EP-3E that it had been shadowing over international waters off China's Hainan island.
The two planes collided. Wang's plunged into the South China Sea and he became a national hero. The Navy plane had to make an unauthorized emergency landing on Hainan. The Chinese military kept the 24-member crew in custody for 11 days.
At that point, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ended military contacts with China. Relations have improved only gradually since.
Unlike his two most immediate predecessors at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld has not visited China. He did meet his counterpart, Gen. Cao Gangchuan, in Washington in October.
Before Myers, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer to visit China under Bush has been Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of U.S. Pacific Command. In a speech at Shanghai's Fudan University in December 2002, Fargo said it was important to promote "a genuine exchange of thought" and consistency in the relationship.
The state of U.S.-China military relations has been anything but consistent in recent decades.
Ties were severed after China's army-led crackdown in 1989 on student protests at Tiananmen Square.
A 1994 visit to Beijing by then-Defense Secretary William Perry was meant to put relations back on track, but that effort was short-lived.
In 1996 China lobbed missiles near Taiwan during the island's first direct presidential election. In response, President Clinton sent two aircraft carrier groups to the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait. It was the largest U.S. naval movement in the Asia-Pacific region since the Vietnam War.
High-level Chinese military visits to Washington were canceled after that. Relations improved until satellite-guided bombs from an Air Force B-2 bomber hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during the U.S. air war over Kosovo in May 1999. China broke off military contacts with the United States after that.
Carter, co-director with Perry of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project, said in an interview Friday that most of China's leaders believe U.S.-China relations have never been better.
My hope is that the people of that nation will rise up and turn it into a democracy. That would solve a lot of problems. What other nation, by itself, could pose a threat? India has numbers, but no real argument with the US. Europe? Yeah, right. Russia? Too bogged down with their economic problems to do anything that we could not handle. Other than the Islamic nations, this is it; China could fall in a day, although I believe it will take longer than that.
As for Taiwan, I'm less sure what to do about that. They have a right to do whatever they want, but if they give the Mainlanders an excuse to jump down their throat, would we militarily help the Taiwanese, with all our other current worldwide commitments???
Unless Taiwan attacked China they have no excuse or right to attack Taiwan.
Taiwan actually has just cause to attack China given China's build up of weapons of mass destruction meant to be used against Taiwan. But we never hear about that or how China shouldn't provoke Taiwan.
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