Highlights

 
Quotable
Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.
– A pirate, from St. Augustine's "City of God"
Original Letters Blog US Casualties Contact Donate

 
February 27, 2009

Balancing Beijing
by Doug Bandow

Former Antiwar.com columnist Doug Bandow writes this week in The National Interest

After a rough start with the EP-3 spy plane confrontation, the Bush administration forged a good relationship between the United States and China. Washington realized that it needed Beijing’s help in dealing with North Korea, winning UN Security Council approval for U.S. objectives, and forging a profitable trading relationship.

The Obama administration risks getting off to an equally difficult start, though for different reasons. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advocates “a comprehensive dialogue with China” and her visit to Beijing went smoothly, but of necessity little of substance was decided.

With economic fears rising and international trade declining, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a convenient target for an administration inclined toward protectionism. Moreover, Democrats have more often emphasized human rights in American diplomacy, another point of controversy with the PRC. At the same time, conservative concerns over Beijing’s rising geopolitical ambitions remain unabated, while the business community, which typically has supported expanded economic relations, has lost influence. The potential exists for a perfect political storm over China.

Read the rest of the article

 

 
comments on this article?
 
Archives

  • Squaring the Pentagon
     3/12/2009

  • Balancing Beijing
     2/27/2009

  • The Asian Century
     2/20/2009

  • Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty: The Battle Continues
     2/6/2009

  • Diplomatic Means to Militaristic Ends
     1/30/2009

  • Investigate and Prosecute the Bush Administration
     1/23/2009

  • Assessing the Bush Administration: A Foreign Catastrophe at Every Turn
     1/16/2009

  • An American City on the Euphrates: US as Iraq's Friend or Overlord?
     1/9/2009

  • Coming Soon: The Disunited States?
     1/2/2009

  • Peace on Earth: Once a Year?
     12/26/2008

  • What Foreign Policy Agenda Will President Barack Obama Set?
     12/19/2008

  • Force: The Real 'F' Word
     12/12/2008

  • From Colony to Superpower
     12/5/2008

  • A Return to Liberal Warmongering? Peace Advocates Must Continue the Battle
     11/28/2008

  • Learning from John McCain's Mistakes: Supporting Aggression in the Caucasus
     11/21/2008

  • Barack Obama Takes Charge: Time to Leave Iraq
     11/14/2008

  • The American People Render Their Electoral Judgment: Time to Finish Off the Neoconservatives
     11/7/2008

  • Conservative Fantasies: A World Never More Dangerous
     10/31/2008

  • Constitutional Peril
     10/24/2008

  • The NATO Alliance: Dangerous Anachronism
     10/17/2008

  • Economic Collapse: The Financial Death of the US Empire
     10/10/2008

  • America Between the Wars
     10/3/2008

  • Time to Tell Irresponsible Allies No Thanks
     9/19/2008

  • U.S. vs. Them
     9/12/2008

  • The Hothead and
    the Finger on the Button
     9/5/2008

  • Georgian Fantasies: Where are the Americans?
     8/29/2008

  • The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
     8/22/2008

  • Washington's Laughable Lack of Self-Awareness
     8/15/2008

  • Which China Will We See?
     8/8/2008

  • Staying Out of Iraq Was the Truest Test for Any Prez Wannabe
     8/1/2008

  • The Lion and the Unicorn
     7/25/2008

  • John McCain: The Candidate of God – Mars, the God of War
     7/18/2008

  • Exit Iraq, and Leave No Bases Behind
     7/11/2008

  • What Does China Think?
     7/4/2008

  • Turning the Recurring Joke of a New European Defense Policy into Reality
     6/27/2008

  • Strengthening the US-South Korea Alliance: For What?
     6/20/2008

  • The Cult of the Presidency
     6/13/2008

  • Waging War Only When Necessary
     6/6/2008

  • Heroic Sacrifices for Foolish Causes: Memorial Days Past and Present
     5/30/2008

  • Ain't My America
     5/23/2008

  • This Time, Avoid the Lebanese Quagmire
     5/16/2008

  • Another Needless Confrontation
     5/9/2008

  • Christianity and War
     5/2/2008

  • Inconvenient Truths About John McCain
    4/25/2008

  • Iraq: Tell Us How This Ends
     4/11/2008

  • Reclaiming Conservatism
     4/4/2008

  • Crisis Postponed?
    3/28/2008

  • John McCain: Blowing Up the World at 3am?
     3/21/2008

  • Mr. Adams's Last Crusade
     3/14/2008

  • Turning China into the Next Big Enemy
     3/7/2008

  • Make America's Policy of Promiscuous Intervention the Issue in November
     2/29/2008

  • No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos
     2/22/2008

  • Operation Iraqi Occupation: A Decade, Century, or More?
     2/15/2008

  • Election 2008: What's a Peacenik to Do?
     2/8/2008

  • The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration
     2/1/2008

  • Korean Troubles Old and New: Time to Bring the Troops Home
     1/25/2008

  • The Great Defense Budget Black Hole
     1/18/2008

  • Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary
     1/11/2008

  • Misguided Meddling in Pakistan
     1/4/2008

  • Michael Huckabee: Foreign Policy Moderate?
     12/28/2007

  • The Forgotten Man
     12/21/2007

  • Embarrassed to Explain US Foreign Policy
     12/14/2007

  • Creating Crisis: Another War in the Balkans?
     12/7/2007

  • Khrushchev's Cold War
     11/30/2007

  • Interest Group Foreign Policy
     11/23/2007

    • Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, just published by Common Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted through Josh's blog at www.brickburner.org. He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com.

    Reproduction of material from any original Antiwar.com pages
    without written permission is strictly prohibited.
    Copyright 2013 Antiwar.com