Thu, Sep 17, 2009 page1

• Keating ‘cautiously optimistic’ on US-China relations

  'FAIR LIKELIHOOD' The head of the US Pacific Command in Hawaii said that China would probably cut off military exchanges if the US agreed to sell Taiwan F-16 jets

  • AFP
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  The top US military commander for Asia said on Tuesday he was “cautiously optimistic” on forging a conflict-free path ahead with China, despite US concerns about Beijing’s rapid military buildup.

  The assessment by Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the ­Hawaii-based US Pacific Command, came despite new US intelligence guidelines listing China and Russia as main challengers and warning that Beijing was ramping up cyber warfare.

  Keating, who steps down next month, pointed to China’s resumption of military exchanges with the US and its landmark anti-piracy naval mission off Somalia, where it cooperated informally with US forces.

  “All of which leads me to be cautiously optimistic about the way ahead with China and even more optimistic than that about the region in its entirety,” Keating said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

  Keating acknowledged that China was developing “some pretty good capability” in areas ranging from submarines to anti-satellite operations to cyber warfare. But he said tensions have eased markedly since just a few years ago.

  “We want to draw the Chinese out, we want to ask them to manifest their intentions forward for a peaceful rise and harmonious integration,” Keating said.

  But relations could face at least temporary hiccups, he cautioned, if US President Barack Obama’s administration agreed to Taiwan’s request to sell it advanced F-16 fighter jets.

  China snapped military exchanges with the US for months after former president George W Bush’s administration in October proposed a US$6.5 billion arms package to Taiwan that did not include the F-16s.

  Keating said there was a “fair likelihood” China would again cut off military exchanges in that event but noted that US policy was set by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. The law ­required Washington, which had switched its recognition to Beijing, to provide Taiwan defensive arms.

  “I hope China doesn’t react that way. I hope that it will take a longer-term view that our country’s policy on Taiwan has been on the books since 1979,” Keating said.

  The RAND Corporation, which focuses its research on national security issues, said in a recent study that while China would face serious challenges in conducting a land invasion of Taiwan, it was in an increasingly strong position in terms of air power.

  With its increasing power in ballistic and cruise missiles, China is in a growing position to suppress air bases in Taiwan as well as those of the US on the nearby Japanese island of Okinawa, the study said.

  But China and Taiwan have been improving relations since President Ma Ying-jeou’s election (馬英九) last year.

  While Ma himself has appealed to the US for weapons, a senior US congressional aide said the easing tensions were reducing the sense of urgency on his request.

  “I’m not hearing on Capitol Hill a groundswell of pressure on the Obama administration to do more on arms sales to Taiwan,” said Frank Jannuzi, the East Asia adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the majority Democratic Party.

  But Congress, he said, needs to look in the long term.

  “I think the key thing to understand about the Taiwan-China military balance is that no amount of arms sales to Taiwan is ever going to give Taiwan the capability to defeat China,” Jannuzi said. “The entire exercise is one of deterrence. It’s one of trying to ensure that the Taiwanese are a hard enough target that China is dissuaded from any adventurism.”
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