US Vice-President Dick Cheney's long-held suspicion that China is a key strategic threat to the US may have been reinforced by his first official visit to that country last week, experts say.
When Cheney entered office more than three years ago ago, he viewed the problem of managing China's rapid rise as the single most important US foreign policy challenge in the 21st century.
Cheney, one of the most powerful vice presidents in US history and who exerts a quiet but strong influence on US foreign policy, may have sounded very upbeat about US-China ties during his three-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai.
But it was clear from the subtext of his speeches that he was not conciliatory on the Taiwan issue, was reserved on praise for China's recent legislation on counter-proliferation regulations and less than impressed by China's reaction to US evidence about North Korea's growing nuclear arsenal, said John Takcik, a China expert at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.
"My feeling is that Cheney returned from China with his sense of frustration with China still fresh," said Takcik, a former 23-year veteran of the US Department of State.
He said he was "struck" that Cheney was not as effusive in his praise of China's cooperation in either the war on terror or resolving the North Korean nuclear turmoil as perhaps previous administration figures had been.
"My sense is that he continues to see China as a major challenge," Takcik said. "But again there is no percentage in raising tensions with the Chinese when we still have a number of other issues which are more pressing right now."
Takcik believes that Cheney's trip might prod the Bush administration to begin a "whole reappraisal" of its China strategy.
"The real challenge for the United States is how do we deal with an East Asia which is coming increasingly under China's political sway," Takcik said.
Derek Mitchell, an Asian affairs expert at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Cheney's fundamental assessment that China would be a rival and competitor with the US in the future could not have changed after his trip.
Mitchell said US focus on China was diverted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US, which led to a Washington-led global war on terrorism and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the Bush administration did not believe China was going to be a friend or partner forever, he added.
"We went from viewing China before 9/11 as being a prime part of the problem and into becoming after 9/11 an important part of the solution to international problems," he added.
Mitchell said Taiwan could top any review of Washington's China policy following Cheney's return at the weekend.
"I think they are looking at how to deal with China in the context of Taiwan and how to get China to be more flexible and more creative to create better conditions for stability across the Strait," he said.
During his China trip, Cheney had been blunt on Taiwan, stressing that the US would continue supplying weapons to Taiwan.
"The central message that Cheney said on the Taiwan issue was that our arms relationship with Taiwan is a direct function of this threat posed by China and since that threat is clearly increasing, our arms relationship and defense commitments to Taiwan concomitantly increases," Takcik said.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS