From The Weekly Standard, via A Glimpse of the World:
It seems like only a few months ago that commentators were blithely babbling about how much relations between Beijing and Washington had improved since the start of the Bush administration, which was marred by China’s downing of an American EP-3 surveillance plane and the detention of its crew. The conventional wisdom was that the war on terrorism had united the United States and China against a common enemy. This rosy scenario is, unfortunately, being undermined almost daily by Beijing’s actions.
Consider what the Chinese Communist leadership has done just in the past year: It passed an “Anti-Secession Law” asserting its legal authority to employ “nonpeaceful means” against Taiwan should the island democracy take any steps toward independence. Along with Russia, it pressured Central Asian republics to kick out U.S. bases being used in the war on terrorism; U.S. forces are now vacating a supply hub in Uzbekistan. In return for this, China has offered no useful assistance whatsoever in the fight against Islamist fanatics. Instead it held its first-ever military exercise with Russia”an exercise transparently focused on combating the United States”and agreed to purchase billions of dollars in Russian military equipment. And it continued its breakneck military buildup, which is focused on the kinds of weapons”especially missiles and submarines”needed to stymie U.S. efforts to protect Taiwan.
