Conn Hallinan: Cornering the Dragon

From the Portside:

When newly appointed CIA Director Porter Goss recently

warned that China’s modernization of its military posed

a direct threat to the U.S., was it standard budget

time scare tactics? Or did it signal the growing

influence of hard-liners in the Bush Administration who

want to “contain” China and re-institute the Cold War

in Asia?

A day later, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

delivered a similar message to the Senate Armed

Services Committee. Rumsfeld claimed that within a

decade the Chinese navy could surpass the U.S. Navy,

and that China was “increasingly moving their navy

further from shore.”

The 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review will reportedly

take a similar alarmist view of China’s military.