By Nick Thompson
October 09, 2008 2:35:00 AM
Categories: Chinaphobia
Courtesy Of: Wired Blog Network [ Wired ]
A new report about U.S. military relations with China has just emerged from a State Department Advisory Board. And not only is it all kinds of hawkish. But the paper comes at the same time that we're loading up Taiwan's arsenal.
The Washington Times describes the paper here. Hans Kristensen at the Federation of American Scientists excoriates it here. But two telling passages need highlighting. First: "In addition to improving the ability to defend U.S. force capabilities targeted by the Chinese, the United States should focus R&D on high technology military capabilities not included in China's military plans -- military systems that will demonstrate to Beijing that trying to get ahead of the United States is futile (much the way [the Star Wars missile defense program] did against the Soviet Union)."
And second: "Washington should also make clear that it will not accept a mutual vulnerability relationship with China -- something Beijing seeks through its expansion of offensive nuclear capabilities. To avoid the emerging creep toward a Chinese assured destruction capability, the United States will need to pursue new missile defense capabilities, including taking full advantage of space."
This sure sounds like a call for a new arms race, and it's a hell of a lot tougher than Secretary's Rice's recent long essay in Foreign Affairs, which noted that "China's leaders .. are moving, albeit slowly, to a more cooperative approach on a range of problems." And, in its toughest lines about the military: "Although Beijing has agreed to take incremental steps to deepen U.S.-Chinese military-to-military exchanges, it needs to move beyond the rhetoric of peaceful intentions toward true engagement in order to reassure the international community."
Maybe the report authors were reading the Atlantic Monthly instead.
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