While some observers say too much is being made in the media of recent tensions between China and the U.S., Reuters reports that conflicting pressures make it difficult for the Chinese government to back down:
In past decades, a poorer, more cautious China greeted U.S. weapons sales to the disputed island with angry words and little else.
Not now, as China enters the Year of the Tiger in its traditional lunar calendar cycle of talismanic animals.
The Obama administration last week announced plans to ship $6.4 billion of missiles, helicopters and weapons control systems to the self-ruled island Beijing calls its own. China threatened to downgrade cooperation with Washington and for the first time sanction companies involved in such sales.
Beijing this week also condemned Obama’s plan to meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader reviled by China.
China’s loud ire adds to signs the country is becoming surer about throwing around its political weight, growing along with an economy soon likely to whir past Japan’s as the world’s second biggest, though it will still trail far behind the United States.
