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.
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