Spy plane standoff heightens pt3
Perhaps the most arrogant comment came from Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican and former Navy Secretary who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. ?“This is a tragic military accident that could have been avoided if Chinese pilots had respected the laws of international air space,?” Warner said. ?“China, as an emerging military power, appears in the eyes of military persons the world over very unprofessional, unless it comes forward promptly with an accurate explanation of the incident and returns our aircraft and crew.?”
The insinuation that the collision was the result of incompetence on the part of the Chinese pilots rings false after recent well-publicized disasters involving US military personnel and innocent civilians around the world: the killing of 20 Italian and German vacationers when a US jet cut the wires of a ski lift in the Alps; the ramming and sinking of a Japanese research vessel by the US submarine Greenville off Pearl Harbor only two months ago; the plane and helicopter crashes that kill US servicemen and women virtually every month.
The Hainan incident comes as the byproduct of an increasingly reckless and aggressive American policy on the whole periphery of China. Last month the Bush administration repudiated the joint US-South Korean policy of rapprochement with the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il, a policy that had relied on Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang. Bush's commitment to the establishment of a national missile defense system, while overtly targeting North Korea, is widely viewed as being directed against China as well, and there have been suggestions that Taiwan would be included under a US missile defense shield once it was deployed.
To this must be added unceasing US pressure over trade and human rights issues and provocations such as the charges, voiced as Bush was moving into the White House, that China was aiding Baghdad in developing Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses. The new Republican president has installed a whole group of senior advisers linked to a pro-Taiwan, anti-Beijing policy. Four top national security officials signed a statement in 1999 condemning the Clinton administration's policy as being too soft on China: Richard Armitage, the nominee for deputy secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary-designate, Vice-President Richard Cheney's chief-of-staff and national security adviser, Lewis Libby, and the nominee for chief strategic arms negotiator, John Bolton.
While the incident near Hainan may be accidental, the heightened conflict that produced it is not. The provocative US policy was examined, in worried tones, in the March 15 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, a business journal that can hardly be accused of a bias towards Beijing.
Under the headline, ?“Dangerous Brinkmanship,?” the magazine warned that the Bush administration was risking a major crisis with China. ?“Bush's rhetoric has been hawkish, not conciliatory; his administration's policy towards China has been more reactive than tactical. As contentious decisions ranging from military support for Taiwan to missile defence to human rights force their way onto the new president's agenda, Bush could well precipitate a crisis in relations with China even before he has had time to appoint a full contingent of advisers or spell out his goals toward Beijing.?”
By Patrick Martin
Perhaps the most arrogant comment came from Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican and former Navy Secretary who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. ?“This is a tragic military accident that could have been avoided if Chinese pilots had respected the laws of international air space,?” Warner said. ?“China, as an emerging military power, appears in the eyes of military persons the world over very unprofessional, unless it comes forward promptly with an accurate explanation of the incident and returns our aircraft and crew.?”
The insinuation that the collision was the result of incompetence on the part of the Chinese pilots rings false after recent well-publicized disasters involving US military personnel and innocent civilians around the world: the killing of 20 Italian and German vacationers when a US jet cut the wires of a ski lift in the Alps; the ramming and sinking of a Japanese research vessel by the US submarine Greenville off Pearl Harbor only two months ago; the plane and helicopter crashes that kill US servicemen and women virtually every month.
The Hainan incident comes as the byproduct of an increasingly reckless and aggressive American policy on the whole periphery of China. Last month the Bush administration repudiated the joint US-South Korean policy of rapprochement with the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Il, a policy that had relied on Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang. Bush's commitment to the establishment of a national missile defense system, while overtly targeting North Korea, is widely viewed as being directed against China as well, and there have been suggestions that Taiwan would be included under a US missile defense shield once it was deployed.
To this must be added unceasing US pressure over trade and human rights issues and provocations such as the charges, voiced as Bush was moving into the White House, that China was aiding Baghdad in developing Iraqi anti-aircraft defenses. The new Republican president has installed a whole group of senior advisers linked to a pro-Taiwan, anti-Beijing policy. Four top national security officials signed a statement in 1999 condemning the Clinton administration's policy as being too soft on China: Richard Armitage, the nominee for deputy secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary-designate, Vice-President Richard Cheney's chief-of-staff and national security adviser, Lewis Libby, and the nominee for chief strategic arms negotiator, John Bolton.
While the incident near Hainan may be accidental, the heightened conflict that produced it is not. The provocative US policy was examined, in worried tones, in the March 15 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, a business journal that can hardly be accused of a bias towards Beijing.
Under the headline, ?“Dangerous Brinkmanship,?” the magazine warned that the Bush administration was risking a major crisis with China. ?“Bush's rhetoric has been hawkish, not conciliatory; his administration's policy towards China has been more reactive than tactical. As contentious decisions ranging from military support for Taiwan to missile defence to human rights force their way onto the new president's agenda, Bush could well precipitate a crisis in relations with China even before he has had time to appoint a full contingent of advisers or spell out his goals toward Beijing.?”
By Patrick Martin
