U.S. and China operate on mutual mistrust

By Jim Anderson

WASHINGTON (DPA): A recent poll in the United States says about 80 percent of the Americans questioned said they considered China more of an adversary than an ally.

If such polls could exist in China, it is likely that about the same percentage of Chinese would respond in the same way, especially after the May destruction of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by "smart" weapons. It is likely the "smart" weapons were more intelligent than the military planners who neglected to look up the new address of the Chinese Embassy in the latest Belgrade telephone directory.

A recent study by the U.S. Institute for Peace, a government- funded think tank in Washington says, "In China, anti-American sentiment is more intense than at any time since, at least, Deng Xiaoping began his reforms."

The anti-Chinese sentiments in the United States has been fanned into white heat by accounts -- some since withdrawn -- that the Chinese government was plundering U.S. nuclear weapon secrets at the same time that Chinese-financed agents were trying to distort the U.S. political process by illegal campaign contributions.

The roots of the mistrust go back farther than the current charges of Chinese spying and political manipulation.

In 1982, the United States and China signed a joint communique about the politically sensitive issue of the American government continuing to sell military hardware to Taiwan, which the Beijing government regards as a renegade province.

To ease the Chinese concern on the issue, the United States said, "It does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan and that its arms sales, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years ... and that it intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan."

The last part of that commitment was explained by U.S. officials to mean that the dollar figure of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would remain steady, which meant that normal inflation and the rising cost of sophisticated weapons would translate into a reduction in the actual level of weapons delivered.

In 1980, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan were about half a billion dollars. But in 1998, the level of U.S. arms deliveries to Taiwan was about US$5.5 billion, including advanced F-16 fighter- bombers, or about 11 times as much as when the 1982 joint communique was signed.

That is not a gradual reduction. That is a large increase.

The U.S. government, under pressure from defense firms and the energetic Taiwan lobby, has continued to make things worse by stepping up the sophistication of the weapons arriving in Taiwan, including "Hawkeye" early warning and command-and-control aircraft, upgrades of the F-16s, and "Hellfire" air-to-surface anti-tank missiles.

To the Chinese, it appears that domestic considerations -- read, partisan politics and lobbying by defense firms -- are more important to the U.S. government than maintaining a strong relationship with the country most likely to be the next strategic partner -- or rival -- for the United States in Asia.

That view was reinforced by news that the U.S. government routinely permits weapons sales or military assistance to countries at war with each other -- such as Ethiopia and Eritrea -- or frequently on the brink of war with each other such as India and Pakistan.

As a recent U.S. Institute of Peace study says, "U.S. policy toward China must be consistent. Yet in recent years it has been replete with zigzags that probably leave both Beijing and Tapei wondering about America's underlying strategy."

In other words, the meandering U.S. policy in Asia not only confuses adversaries, it also confuses its allies.