|
|
|
|
US-China complications,
contradictions
By Andrew Tully
WASHINGTON - Since US president Richard M
Nixon resumed relations with China three decades
ago, the two countries' relationship has been rife
with complications and contradictions. On one
hand, Washington has encouraged China's efforts to
establish a market economy, even championing its
entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). On
the other, the United States has not forgotten
Beijing's bloody crackdown on the student
pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in
1989. It also bristles at China's threats of force
against the island of Taiwan, which Beijing calls
a renegade province.
US and Chinese
diplomats met this week in Beijing to discuss a
wide range of issues, including Taiwan and North
Korea. The United States and China are at odds
over Taiwan, but agree that North Korea should not
have nuclear weapons.
The two days of
closed-door talks ended Tuesday on a positive
note, news agencies reported. Chinese officials
called the talks US deputy under secretary of
defense Richard Lawless the first dialogue of its
kind with Washington on defense policy. General
Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of staff of the
People's Liberation Army, reportedly told Lawless
that the high-level Chinese representation at the
talks showed "our desire to further improve our
relations, especially military-to-military".
The Beijing talks also focused on the US
insistence on maintaining a 15-year-old Western
embargo on arms sales to China. The ban was
imposed by the European Union and the US in
response to the Tiananmen Square bloodshed -
Beijing's violent crackdown against peaceful
pro-democracy demonstrators - and Washington says
China's human-rights record has improved only
negligibly since then.
Some European
countries say they want to resume arms sales to
China, albeit cautiously. A British government
spokesman said in Washington on January 25 that
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had told incoming US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Europe
will carefully monitor such sales to ensure that
China gets no strategically important weapons.
Claude Barfield, an international trade
specialist who served as a consultant to the
office of the US trade representative under
president Ronald Reagan, told Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty that he doesn't see
contradictions in Sino-American relations as much
he sees ambivalence. He said the United States is
determined to ensure that China does not gain the
weaponry to launch an attack on Taiwan. Beijing
views Taiwan, a self-governed island of 23 million
people, as part of China and has vowed to bring it
back under its control, by force if necessary, if
Taiwan mores decisively to establish de jure
independence.
Under the Taiwan Relations
Act of 1979, the United States is obligated to
help Taiwan maintain its defenses.
More
generally, Barfield said, the United States also
seeks to limit the growth of China's overall
military aspirations.
"Part of this is
symbolic and part of it is, I think, concrete,"
Barfield said. "The United States does not want to
see direct high-tech defense technology sold to
China, some of which might have an impact on the
cross-[Taiwan] Strait situation, plus a more
general attempt to hold back China's move to
become a strategic military power."
Meanwhile, Barfield said, the US is
supporting China's ever-growing involvement in the
world of trade, despite some economic differences
between the two countries. In fact, he said, their
positive and negative feelings toward each other
do not cancel each other out, but are merely
distinct parts of a complex international
relationship.
"Both sides are
sophisticated. The Chinese are aware of the
continuing [US] reaction to Tiananmen Square. On
the other hand, they're [the Chinese] also aware
of their [own] increasing economic influence
around the world," Barfield said. "So they will
criticize the United States for [making available]
weapons systems for Taiwan or statements trying to
stop them from buying military [equipment], but
they know it's part of the game. I mean, I don't
think it has any long-term negative impacts."
James Lilley, a former ambassador to both
South Korea and China, urged care in assuming
there is more agreement between Washington and
Beijing than may actually exist. For example, he
cited friction over the United States' trade
deficit with China and the US position that China
is artificially undervaluing its currency, the
yuan, to maintain its export advantage.
Lilley also argued that many people
erroneously believe that the United States and
China hold similar positions on North Korea simply
because neither wants to see that country develop
a nuclear arsenal.
He said there are deep
divisions between Washington and Beijing on how to
persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear
ambitions.
"The Chinese do not agree with
us all the way on North Korea. There's distance
between us," Lilley said. "For instance, they
stress that we [the United States] should use
seductive means to bring them in [persuade North
Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions], namely
bribe them with food and oil and money. We say we
tried that and it didn't work."
In the
end, Lilley said, words like "ambivalence" apply
more aptly to relationships between allies, such
as the United States and France. When it comes to
Washington and Beijing, only one word seems to
make sense.
"'Contradictions' - that's the
right term to use. This has been true since the
beginning, it'll be true for the next 50 years,
that there are contradictions in the
relationship," Lilley said. "You can have a
perfectly vigorous trading relationship, and yet
take measures that limit [China's] ability to use
military force against its neighbors, particularly
Taiwan. But I think you've just got to live with
these things."
After all, he said, China
itself is a contradiction: a supposedly communist
state with an aggressive market economy. As such,
he said, it can't expect to deal with the rest of
the world, especially the leading capitalist
country, without contradictions. And the rest of
the world must accept it if it doesn't want to
drive China back into isolation.
Copyright 2005 RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Avenue NW,
Washington, DC 20036. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette China Sex News
|
|
|
