From Nov 15, 2000, WP ....US Now a "Threat" in China's Eyes.... to go along with your feelings expressed today....and I agree, FWIW...
U.S. Now a 'Threat' in China's Eyes
washingtonpost.com
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 15, 2000 ; Page A01
BEIJING ?? In 1998, when China issued its second white paper on national
defense, representing the consensus view of the
government, the document mentioned the United States 10 times, each time
positively. Last month, China's third white paper
mentioned the United States 13 times. All but two of the references were
negative.
The numbers underscore an important shift that will likely vex the next
U.S. administration. Faced with what it feels is a shaky
security environment and a strong and sometimes arrogant America,
Beijing has increasingly viewed the United States as an
obstacle to its rise as an Asian power.
In government pronouncements, stories in the state-run press, books and
interviews, the United States is now routinely
portrayed as Enemy No. 1. Strategists writing in the pages of China
Military Science, the military's preeminent open-source
publication, are grappling publicly with the possibility that the United
States and China could go to war, specifically over
Taiwan.
"A new arms race has started to develop," wrote Liu Jiangjia, an officer
in the People's Liberation Army, in a piece in the
magazine. "War is not far from us now."
The new calculus is rooted in a belief that the United States does not
want to see China strong and powerful--a belief that has
united officials of many political persuasions. Even moderate academics
express the fear that the two countries, despite $95
billion in trade last year, are somehow headed for a showdown in Asia in
the next 10 years.
"China's public view of the United States has changed quite seriously
since 1998," said Shen Dingli, a prominent arms control
expert at Fudan University in Shanghai. "The U.S. has been painted as a
threat to Asian-Pacific security. We've never said it so
bluntly before. . . . I think China is more clearly preparing for a
major clash with the United States."
While few in China, except for some strategists in the army, seem to
think war is inevitable, the fact that conflict with the United
States is openly discussed is a significant development in China's
security thinking and in its relations with the United States.
The United States is now perceived as opposing Beijing's two premier
goals in the region: unification with Taiwan, thereby
ending what the Communist Party has called 150 years of humiliation at
the hands of foreigners; and gaining control over the
strategic shipping lanes in the South China Sea, through which the bulk
of Asia's oil passes.
But while China is increasingly united in its view of the United States
as a possible adversary, the leadership does not appear
united on how to deal with the challenge. Beijing's current policy is a
modification of the policy pursued by dictator Mao
Zedong in the 1950s. The country supports many policies that the United
States opposes--regarding Iraq, Iran and former
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic--and questions some key policies
that the United States supports--such as
humanitarian intervention in other countries and nonproliferation of
missiles.
In some ways the tussles over how to handle Washington mirror those in
the United States regarding China. Americans argue
about engaging or containing Beijing; Chinese argue about engaging or
confronting the United States. The United States has its
"Blue Team," a group of politicians, academics and political aides who
are concerned with the China threat. "And we have our
'Red Team,' " said Li Dongsi, a political scientist at People's
University, referring to a vocal group of anti-American nationalists
in research organizations, the military and security services.
"There is no clear sense of direction," said Shi Yinhong, an
international relations specialist. "Positing the U.S. as a threat is
too
simple. It gives us no answers on how we are going to deal with
continued U.S. dominance, how we are to deal with the
worldwide trend in democratization, how we are to deal with
globalization and with the loss of sovereignty implied by our
accession into the WTO," the World Trade Organization.
China's views on the United States have always been contradictory; one
term for the United States translates as "beautiful
imperialist." But in the last two years, a cascade of bad news has
increased China's misgivings about Washington.
Beijing's view of America has been soured by a combination of events:
NATO's expansion; the strengthening of U.S.-Japan
defense guidelines regarding joint action in the areas surrounding
Japan; a congressional report alleging two decades of Chinese
espionage in the United States; Premier Zhu Rongji's tough visit to the
United States in April 1999 when he failed to secure an
agreement on Chinese membership in the WTO. In addition, China has been
disturbed by talk in Washington of a national
missile defense system and talk that such a system might be sold to
Taiwan. The May 1999 allied bombing of China's embassy
in Belgrade during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia, which killed three
Chinese journalists, outraged China, which declined
to accept Washington's explanation that it was an accident.
"No fundamental change has been made in the old, unfair and irrational
international political and economic order," last month's
defense white paper said. "Certain big powers [the United States] are
pursuing 'neo-interventionism,' 'neo-gunboat policy' and
neo-economic colonialism, which are seriously damaging the sovereignty,
independence, and development interests of many
countries, and threatening world peace and security."
Central to this premise is Washington's relationship with Taiwan, an
island of 23 million people that China generally views as a
renegade province. The white paper said Washington's continued arms
sales to Taiwan were stymieing its attempts to unite with
the island. In September, the Pentagon approved the sale of $1.3 billion
in arms, including $150 million worth of the
AIM-120C Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM.
These events prompted a profound debate over the past year in China
about whether "peace and development are the
dominant trend of the times." That formulation, by the late leader Deng
Xiaoping, is the fundamental underpinning of China's
economic reform program, which placed economic development on the top of
its four modernizations and national defense on
the bottom.
While "peace and development" won out in the end, Chinese and American
analysts, such as Evan Medeiros at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies, believe that China's leadership is
now paying more attention to military modernization--mainly
as a result of troubled ties with the United States and problems with
Taiwan.
Domestic political currents have also played a role. Beijing's political
masters are replacing communism with nationalism as a
new state ideology, creating an atmosphere that is not conducive to
close ties with Washington. Indeed, Chinese officials say
that these days China's version of political correctness demands a tough
stance against the United States.
"We have a saying," said Yuan Ming, a professor of international
relations at Beijing University: "It's better to be 'left' than
'right.' "
One official who appears to have learned this lesson is the president,
Jiang Zemin.
"Jiang staked a lot of his credibility on improving ties with the U.S.,
but after the summit [with President Clinton] in 1998 he had
no successes, so he was weakened," said Shen of Fudan University. "The
leadership tried their best and their face was slapped
by America. They must listen to the military now."
The modernization program pursued by the Chinese military is
concentrating on missiles, warhead delivery systems and their
accuracy, Western military experts say. China is also upgrading and
expanding its nuclear forces; it possesses several dozen
delivery systems, compared with thousands in the United States.
On Oct. 31, China launched its first homemade navigation positioning
satellite, which could improve the accuracy of its missiles.
That project, according to one Chinese arms control expert, has been a
key task of the army's general staff department for 10
years.
China's air force and navy are also being upgraded. China has purchased
Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets from Russia and is
starting to produce the Su-27. It has taken delivery of one Russian
Sovremenny-class destroyer equipped with supersonic
anti-ship missiles; it will receive another one shortly and, according
to a Western military attache in Beijing, is prepared to buy
two more.
It has purchased two Russian-made Kilo-class submarines and is believed
to be buying one more.
Still, China's resources remain limited and military training is
relatively primitive. China's defense spending is a fraction of
America's and the secondary tasks the army is responsible for, such as
combating floods and separatist movements in Tibet and
the region of Xinjiang, can only hinder its modernization drive.
A Chinese research institute run by the Ministry of State Security
forecast last year that the gap between China and the United
States in key indicators of comprehensive national power would continue
to widen for the next 35 years, according to a
Western security expert familiar with the report.
China's leaders, in addition, have cautioned the military in recent
weeks not to stray from the party line that economic
development is still the country's top priority. Jiang criticized the
military in a semi-public forum recently for increasing China's
sense of crisis in order to justify bigger defense expenditures, a
source close to the military said. Premier Zhu announced last
month that China would do all in its power to settle the Taiwan issue
peacefully.
Shi, the international affairs expert, said he believes that the next
U.S. administration's dealings with China will have a great
effect on China's behavior.
"The U.S. must neither be too fearful nor too nervous," he said. "In the
end, the United States has a much bigger influence on
China than China on the United States."
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