China's Persecution Complex

...But President Musharraf has seized upon the war in Afghanistan to rebuild ties to the United States and move against the Islamic extremists who are his domestic opposition...

...And the Pentagon is being remarkably frank about what will surely reinforce Beijing's fears of containment...

...power closing in, the Bush administration cannot retreat to the pre-Sep-tember 11 status quo...

...Even more extraordinary, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen went so far as to invite members of Taiwan's fiercely democratic ruling party—previously denounced as "splittists" and "separatists"—for a friendly visit...

...Not only are U.S...

...and Japan has played a larger military role...

...The initial hysteria of the Chinese popular press has subsided, reflecting both the decision of Chinese leaders to try to exploit American policy to repress China's own Muslim minorities and their recognition that world public opinion sided with the United States...

...after the war in Kosovo, it assumed control over East Europe...

...The U.S...

...wails a headline in the Chinese press in Hong Kong...

...After the Gulf War of 1991, it assumed control over the Middle East...

...Two major events account for China's current smiling face and for the high stakes at the upcoming summit...

...Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has gradually expanded its share of influence by launching a series of wars...

...from Beijing's point of view, other than the Taliban, the People's Republic of China has been the biggest loser thus far in the war on terrorism...

...In reality, the Chinese know well that limited U.S...

...Russia has permitted American overflights and now basing in former Soviet republics...

...will absolutely not give up such a good opportunity...

...appetite for allies is frustrating China's attempts to balance America's growing global power...

...the release of a Chinese political prisoner with ties to the united states is becoming the traditional prelude to a meeting between American and Chinese presidents...

...It can be said that if the United States captured Afghanistan at one stroke, it would directly check and disrupt China's . . . major strategic objectives in the new century...

...In Tokyo, the Koizumi government is accelerating progress toward the goals of a more active alliance with the United States and the reassertion of Japanese geopolitical and military influence more commensurate with its wealth...

...The aim of U.S...

...missile defenses will have little effect on the large Russian nuclear deterrent, while calling into question the effectiveness of Beijing's small arsenal of fewer than two dozen missiles...

...This piece, which appeared less than a week after the September 11 attacks, typifies Chinese fears about where the war on terrorism might lead: to the strategic encirclement of Beijing...

...To its credit, the administration thus far has refused to trim its sails to appease Beijing...

...And naturally, the consolidation of power by Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive party in Taiwan's December elections is a tremendous setback to Beijing's hopes for "reunification...

...And President Bush's pledge to "do whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack made it clear that the United States views the island as a key to U.S...

...troops going to be in Afghanistan and Pakistan for some time, but the Pentagon recently admitted that it "is preparing a military presence in Central Asia that could last for years," according to the New York Times...

...To consolidate and establish its position as the sole global hegemon," the article asserts, the Bush administration has a three-pronged strategy: "to occupy Afghanistan militarily, support a pro-U.S...

...This message is widely received in China, notably among foreign policy elites...

...The fight against terrorism has given the United States a good reason to fulfill this claim...

...Nor is China having much luck in East Asia, where its obvious ambitions are provoking thinly veiled hostility...

...It is the defense of our people, our principles, and our genuine security interests that has brought American and allied troops to China's bor-ders—this is now the "normal" state of affairs...

...While Beijing may see U.S...

...and over Central Asia through the anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan...

...I don't think America can give up its Central Asian presence now," Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh told the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland...

...First, Beijing is absorbed in the long drama of the succession to Jiang Zemin...

...Writes Deng Hou, Eastern Europe and Central Asia director at the China Institute on International Issues, "By using anti-terrorism as the excuse to enter Central Asia, the United States has gained the upper hand in the bid to control Central Asia...

...The Chinese are particularly flummoxed by Russia's passivity in the face of the Bush administration's plans to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and to build a limited global missile defense...

...And Jiang's heir apparent, Hu Jintao, has relatively little foreign policy experience—or backing among the Chinese military...

...China's strategy of military intimidation and its attempts to appeal to Taipei businessmen anxious for an increased presence on the mainland are backfiring...

...For more than a decade, Beijing paid court to the fractured regime in Islamabad, selling it medium-range missiles and cozying up to anti-American elements in the armed forces...

...Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has taken extraordinary internal risks to support U.S...

...While Taiwan has played no significant role in the war in Afghanistan, recent elections on the island cemented the rule of the anti-reunification Democratic Progressive party...

...But fears of American encirclement and containment of China have remained a hot topic among Chinese strategists and foreign policy analysts...

...Through Beijing's eyes, any recent tour of the strategic horizon is bleak and getting bleaker...

...The U.S...

...Beijing has just pledged $150 million to help rebuild Afghanistan, and so far has made little fuss over the discovery of bugging devices aboard the u.s.-made airplane intended to serve as President Jiang Zemin's private jet...

...indeed, Tom Donnelly is deputy executive director of the Project for a New American Century...

...India looks for a long-term strategic partnership with the United States and has reacted calmly to terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals...

...puppet regime and stick a dagger in China's back" by creating "a containing chain along east China...

...Add to all this the bitter fact that the United States with its ever-expanding "pool of allies," while continuing to contain China in South Asia and East Asia, is building its influence in Central Asia...

...Revealing plans for periodic training exercises in the region, Wolfowitz contends that the larger purpose is to "send a message to everybody . . . that we have a capacity to come back in and will come back in—we're not just going to forget about [the region...

...Dispatching Troops to Afghanistan by the United States Is Tantamount to Sticking a Dagger in China's Back...

...When the Bush administration sent Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to India to discuss a new strategic partnership with New Delhi, the Chinese concern for Pakistan became even greater...

...The bases' "function may be more political than military," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says...

...This process is planned to play out over several years...

...Although the DPP government is unlikely to declare independence, even small assertions of Taiwanese autonomy— such as the decision in mid-January to add the words "Issued in Taiwan" to the cover of Taiwanese passports— provoke hostility in Beijing...

...In Russia, the apparent westward tilt of Vladimir Putin since September 11 has thrown the Chinese for a loop, calling into question the strategic partnership developed during Boris Yeltsin's rule and nurtured into Putin's term...

...presence in the region must remain as long' as it is needed...

...Chinese charm offensives, of course, have proved to be siren songs to American presidents since Richard Nixon, and the foreign policy establishment will be pushing hard to "normalize" relations with Beijing...

...And the war on terrorism is bringing the United States closer to the Philippines—and even perhaps to Indonesia and Malaysia...

...The presence of American troops in Central Asia is especially surprising and galling to the Chinese...

...global strategy in these early years of the 21st century," argues analyst Zhao Linglin in the Beijing-owned Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao, "is to politically integrate the whole world and act as sole world leader...

...second, the events of september 11 have energized the United States and the Bush administration to play a more assertive role internationally, in effect challenging China's strategy for becoming a great power...

...It has rejected attempts to equate the Uighurs with the Taliban or al Qaeda, for example, and has refused to lift post-Tiananmen sanctions that would improve Chinese military capabilities in Xinjiang...

...T]he action the United States and other countries have taken and will continue to take in the wake of September 11 is of greater significance to the world than the terrorist bombings themselves," writes Jiang Lingfei, a professor of international relations at the Chinese University of National Defense, in the January 2 issue of Beijing Review...

...The Chinese see this and don't like it...

...But China clearly is approaching this summit with a special urgency...

...Much of this warming of relations has a ritual quality...

...An essay on the People's Daily website warns that the war on terrorism gives the United States an "excuse" to "surround and contain China...

...One of the few things that India and Pakistan now agree on is that the United States should remain in the region...

...BY TOM DONNELLY WITH PRESIDENT BUSH due to travel to Beijing on February 21, Chinese leaders have embarked on a pre-summit charm offensive...

...Musharraf agreed: "'The U.S...

...security in the Pacific...

...If the United States should attack and occupy Afghanistan," the article continues, "it would impose an extremely big threat to the national security of China, and its objectives of modernization and complete national reunification"—such as gaining control of Taiwan—"would be seriously affected...

...Furthermore, after each war, the United States enlarged its pool of allies and organized more and more coalitions...

...Liu Jianfei, a member of the Institute on International Affairs at the Chinese Communist party's important Central Party School, believes that this "undermines the current strategic equilibrium, causing other countries to lose their nuclear deterrence, and at the same time enables the United States to possess absolute superiority in military power . . . and thereby lay down a solid material foundation for building unipolar hegemonism...

...policy...

...China's plan to manipulate the levers of power in South Asia by exploiting the rivalry between Pakistan and India also has all but collapsed...