Posted on 02/18/2006 8:47:45 PM PST by RWR8189
DON'T LET DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE Robert Zoellick's fondness for pandas mislead you. The Bush administration's China policy has been undergoing a quiet metamorphosis, and now has a new steeliness to it.
Fifteen months ago, just two days before George W. Bush's reelection, the Chinese government's English-language mouthpiece, China Daily, reprinted a blast by senior diplomat Qian Qichen against a "Bush Doctrine" marked by "cocksuredness and arrogance." President Bush no doubt believed, in the last days of an extremely tight race, that Qian's comments were an attempt to influence the result of the election, or at the very least an attempt to ingratiate Beijing with John Kerry, then slightly ahead in the polls. Upon his reelection, President Bush was apparently not amused.
Since then, his China policy has evolved away from its once-cautious optimism that Beijing might possibly, somehow, be persuaded to join Washington in maintaining a rules-based world order on such issues as nonproliferation, trade, human rights, energy, environment, and health policies. The official U.S. agnosticism about where China's rise will take it--and the world--seems to be ebbing. Instead, the administration seems ready to conclude that China is not going in the right direction and that the United States must hedge its bets.
On February 3, a midlevel interagency meeting kicked off a new round of policy reviews in preparation for President Bush's upcoming meetings with Chinese president Hu Jintao, scheduled for the end of April. The meeting was hastily arranged after Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian's remarks questioning the continued utility of Taiwan's official "National Unification Council." (The council was established in 1991 to consider modes of eventual unification should China ever democratize, but has not met since 1999 and is kept on life support by a token annual budget appropriation of roughly $30.)
The question of the day at the February 3 meeting was, "How does the Taiwan president's stance affect the Taiwan Strait 'status quo' in the run-up to the Hu visit?"
"Not much," according to some administration China experts. Bush's National Security Council China director Dennis Wilder, I was told, launched the discussion with a recitation of China's unhelpful behavior in the Taiwan Strait over the past year and urged a policy of "balance." To be sure, Taiwan's infant democracy has given fits to the Bush administration. But China's behavior has been egregious.
Beijing's so-called "Anti-Secession Law" last March was an open-ended declaration of a casus belli against Taiwan. Since 2001, Taiwan has opened direct links between China and the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu, licensed direct charter flights to China, relaxed investment rules, and begged for military-to-military "confidence-building measures." China has rebuffed every call from Taiwan for cross-Strait dialogue. Chinese Communist party leaders will deal only with opposition parties in Taiwan that "adhere" to the "one China principle" and oppose Taiwan's defense spending. Beijing even refused to allow a Taiwan representative to attend the December 30 funeral of Wang Daohan, Beijing's most eminent Taiwan negotiator.
In short, China has done nothing to requite Taiwan's outreach. By the time of his November visit to Beijing, President Bush had become so dismayed that he inserted a paragraph praising Taiwan's democracy into his Asia policy speech in Kyoto--a paragraph that surprised every China watcher in Washington, including those in the White House. The president, it seems, was personally trying to maintain the balance.
Separate interagency meetings in early February reviewed China's unhelpful posture on Iran's nuclear program. (China's ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, reassured Tehran that, as a "matter of principle," China would "never" support sanctions on Iran.) China continues to give cover to North Korea's nuclear intransigence and extends financial and military aid to despotic, sometimes genocidal, Asian and African regimes, from Burma and Uzbekistan to Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Further hardening administration attitudes were the xenophobic Chinese government-instigated demonstrations and violence against Japan last spring and the September incident in which China's newest Russian-built destroyer locked its fire-control radar onto a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft--over Japanese-claimed waters. In 2004, the State Department had explicitly warned that "Article 5 of the [U.S.-Japan] Mutual Security Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands," the territory in question. China seemed to be probing how firm the U.S.-Japan alliance is.
All of these considerations point to a new consensus within the administration that, on the China-Taiwan issue at least, Washington should rebalance its policies back in Taiwan's direction.
It just so happened that the Pentagon also issued its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on February 3. A number of Pentagon China hands I spoke with that Friday evening pointed to QDR pages 29 and 30 and commented to me that it was the first time a QDR had ever mentioned a putative adversary nation by name. The passage reads as follows:
of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter strategies.
The QDR then spends an entire page describing how "the pace and scope of China's military build-up already puts regional military balances at risk." And to top it off, one China specialist at Defense pointed to the two photos that bracket the China pages--one depicting a submarine launch of a Tomahawk cruise missile, the other showing Japanese and American F-15 fighter pilots "discussing tactics . . . before a mission." A mischievous smile on my interlocutor's face prompted me to ask, "Was that intentional?" He grinned, "Intentional or not, that's how the Chinese will see it."
BUSH ADMINISTRATION ATTITUDES toward China are hardening in other ways. In early December, Deputy Secretary Zoellick concluded the latest semi-annual round of U.S.-China dialogue with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo--"one of the few Chinese diplomats comfortable with departing from a prepared script," according to one administration China hand. When the dialogue concluded, however, Zoellick reportedly was left with the impression that he had done all the talking and that Dai had only listened noncommittally.
Zoellick had been particularly concerned about China's support for African dictatorships and its complete blindness to the human misery they wreak. On January 12, Zoellick got his response--a slap in the face in the form of a Chinese foreign ministry "white paper" on Africa. On the matter of human rights, civil and political rights, and genocide, China's white paper was silent. It said instead that China "respects African countries' independent choice of the road of development and supports African countries' efforts to grow stronger through unity." In other words, what African dictators do to their own people is of no concern to Beijing.
Which made it all the more puzzling when Zoellick then went out of his way to stop in Beijing after consultations in Tokyo (and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland), and then travel on to the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu on January 25, for the sole purpose of getting a photograph of himself "hugging a panda"--for his wife, he told reporters. The resulting images of Zoellick clad in a sterile veterinary smock and gloves, cuddling a distinctly uncomfortable baby panda, could have been seen as evidence the Bush administration had gone a bit soft in the noggin' on China. Indeed, the initial reaction among Washington China-skeptics was horror.
We have since been reassured that Zoellick indeed has a special fondness for pandas derived from his service on a World Wildlife Fund advisory council, and that Mrs. Zoellick did indeed want such a photo. Zoellick also believed that his appearance with the panda would reassure the Chinese that he is still open to a "global dialogue"--provided the Chinese start to act like they're interested.
But more likely the Bush administration is near the end of its rope with China, which now looms as a new "peer competitor," against which the United States will have to devise a new Western Pacific strategy. Unless Beijing makes some significant contribution to world peace, nonproliferation, human rights, or--not to forget--its massive trade surplus with the United States by April, President Hu should not expect a warm welcome in Washington. And Deputy Secretary Zoellick is likely to chair the welcoming committee.
John J. Tkacik Jr., a retired State Department officer who served in Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"But more likely the Bush administration is near the end of its rope with China, which now looms as a new "peer competitor," against which the United States will have to devise a new Western Pacific strategy."
I'll believe that when GW pushes for formal recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign nation and establishes full diplomatic ties.
World War III is coming, and it will be war on a scale we can't even imagine.
Yep, it just might be the 'end times'.
They are also waking up to hugging that grizzly bear to the north of the Panda. The Grizzly is wearing his Stalin coat again.
Watch out for the Russians. They want a piece of the action against us.
See post 6
Hopefully Russia will see the error in their appeasement of terrorists, but a lot of suffering will take place between now and then.
I think that Russia will play an active role. They will not be neutral, but will directly side with the Chinese, and hold our fleet off from defending Taiwan.
It's about time that Bush woke up to the threat from China. I don't like the fact that Zoellick has been on the Board of Directors of the World Wildlife Fund. They are another of those fuzzy-thinking environmental groups. We need some clear thinking realists to see the real threats.
We brought the problem on ourselves and now we are stuck with it. Our best allies in the 21st century will be Japan and India, both of which are threatened by China.
Ummm. With what?
Economic sanctions?
Amen. Hopefully he wil prove to be the realist we need.
Knitebane, as regards the Chinese PLAN capability. The Chinese are deploying more and more dangerous diesel/electric subs. WHile in the open sea they are no real match for our nuclear attack boats, in litorral waters, where they can wait for us to come to them, they can be very dangerous. They do not have the speed to manuever or intercept on the high seas, but they are very, very quiet.
In addition, the Chinese on the surfrcae are deploying more and more sophisticated and deangerous surface combatants in some numbers. Particularly the Sovs that they are buying from Russia. The Moskit missile is a very dangerous and capapable weapon system for any vessel that gets within range of its 250 km capability...and is able to be targeted thereby (which is the real issue for the PLAN). In addition, there new type 52C and 51C area-air defense, Aegis-like (sophisticated battle management PAR radars, vertical launch missiles, etc.) are also a concern because we have to achieve air dominance over the straits.
You can see and research most all of these things on my site (and elsewhere):
And, as CrawDaddy pointed out, you can read about a possible scenario where it all goes bad for us in:
If the Russians add their subs and surface combatants to that mix, it just makes the nut that much harder to crack.
The Chinese are developing their capabilities, rapidly, to challenge us. My bet is that that challenge will not come until several other things take place. To white:
Sorry for the lenght...just my opinion.
Thanks CrawDaddy, for the very kind words about the series. Please consider a review here on FR to that effect if you are so inclined. Again, thanks, and God's best to you and yours.
Hark! Hark! Dost thou tell me the apple hast fallen far from the tree?
We have to allow that this is simple tactics in time of war.
bump to read later
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