In the seas around the US island territory of Guam in the Central Pacific, a delegation of 10 Chinese army, navy and air force officers watched three US aircraft carriers and other armed forces go through strenuous training exercises last week.
At the same time in Beijing, the retired chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, met with General Liang Guanglie (梁光烈), chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). They discussed anti-terrorism, the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and regional security, according to the official PLA Daily newspaper.
These were the latest military exchanges to which US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and PLA leaders agreed during Rumsfeld's visit to China last fall. A crucial US objective in exposing the Chinese to US military operations is to avert a Chinese miscalculation about US capabilities. These exchanges, in turn, are part of a delicate and difficult balancing act for the US in Asia, which is to keep the peace between China and Taiwan.
"We are trying our best to have both sides understand the true role we are playing," says Admiral William Fallon, who commands US forces in the Pacific and Asia from his headquarters above Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
Fallon, the senior US military officer responsible for executing what he called a policy of "evenhandedness," said in an interview: "We want to do whatever we can to prevent the PRC [People's Republic of China] from attacking [Taiwan] militarily. On the other hand, we are trying to encourage the people of Taiwan to figure out some way in which they can reach a long-term accommodation with the PRC."
That balance has been sought since 1979, when US president Jimmy Carter switched US diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. A displeased US Congress responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act to insist that whatever administration was in office in Washington would take Chinese threats to Taiwan seriously.
Today, the rivalry between Taiwan and China has become more intense and the US more engaged, for two reasons.
One, China has become a regional political, economic, and military power and is well on its way to becoming a global power that insists on conquering Taiwan. Second, Taiwan, after decades of authoritarian rule, has become a democracy and an economic tiger whose citizens have increasingly demanded the right to self-determination.
For the US, hostilities between China and Taiwan would almost certainly draw the US into a war that would be more destructive than the Korean war of 1950-1953, in which 54,246 Americans died and 103,284 were wounded, or the war in Vietnam from 1954 to 1972, in which 58,209 Americans died and 153,303 were wounded.
In the interview, Fallon said the US has made progress in achieving the balance.
"From my perspective," he said, "we are better off today than we were a year ago."
He said that when he visited China last month for the second time, he found "the tension levels have ameliorated over the past year. They have not ratcheted up their declarations. That's helpful because, in the absence of that tension, there are more opportunities to work things out."
About Taiwan, he cautioned, "they should not have unrealistic expectations that, no matter what they do, we are going to come to their defense should they take steps that might provoke [China]," meaning seeking formal independence.
Fallon also criticized Taiwan for not spending enough on defense or to improving its defenses.
"To their credit," he said, "they appear now to recognize this. The military people get it and have taken steps, in my view, to start addressing some of these issues."
The admiral did not mention President Chen Shui-bian (
On another front, Fallon has been the target of a whispering campaign in Washington, where so called "China hawks" such as Michael Pillsbury, who consults widely on China, and Larry Wortzel of the conservative Heritage Foundation, a retired army colonel, have complained that Fallon's plans for exchanges with China give away too much.
To that criticism, Fallon responded: "I will do the things that I believe are correct. I certainly understand the policies of the administration. I certainly understand the guidance of my boss, the secretary [of defense]."
In reply to an e-mailed query, a spokesman for Rumsfeld, Eric Ruff, pointed to Rumsfeld's agreement with Chinese leaders and said: "Admiral Fallon is following up on these."
Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.
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