Once again, China warns the United States of the consequences of making any new arms deals with Taiwan. The warning comes against the backdrop of frequent reports saying that the Obama administration intends to sell Taiwan F-16 aircrafts. The U.S. administration has informed Congress of its first proposed transaction to sell weapons to Taiwan on 31 of last January for 6.4 billion dollars. It is planned that the American transactions include also selling Taiwan 60 "Black Hawk" helicopters for $ 3.1 billion dollars, 114 "Patriot " missiles worth 2.81 billion dollars, "Harpoon" missiles, and minesweepers, without including "F-16"aircrafts required by the Government of Taiwan.
Providing Taiwan with advanced military equipments does not practically threaten China’s great superiority over Taiwan. However, providing Taipei with arms is seen, by China at least, as a provocative and concerning step that deliberately damages Chinese vital interests especially being one of the most sensitive issues from the Chinese national and strategic perspective. Perhaps, this is why China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said that his country's relations with the United States were "deeply tore apart" as a result of the rising conflict between the two major powers. He added that “the United States should respect China’s main interests " with regard to Taiwan and Tibet.
The issue of Tibet constitutes also another source feeding the tension between the United States and China. This became clear after the meeting that brought together President Obama with Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama who has a separatist tendency from China.
Following this meeting, the Chinese government said that the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader to Washington, have seriously affected relations between China and the United States. Chinese authorities accuse Al-Dalai Lama, who has lived in China since 1959, of promoting to the independence of Tibet and they oppose any meeting between him and officials from other countries as this represents an implicit support to the separatist tendency represented by Al- Dalai Lama.
By using the religious - ethnic prejudice in its efforts to pressure China, America is awakening memories of the Cold War. It focused then on exploiting religious sentiments among the population of Catholic Poland in order to promote for a rebellion against the Communist-Soviet control over Poland. At that time, the Polish Pope of Rome, "John Paul II", played a key role in enhancing Western pressures, which targeted the Polish General Yarozeleski who was allied with the Soviet Union.
The American recent attitudes towards Taiwan and Tibet represent a serious escalation crossing the Chinese red lines. It means strategically that America is playing with fire which undoubtedly does not reflect its miscalculation of Chinese sensitivities, but reflects a rise in international and strategic competition between the two giant powers.
The controversial issues between the United States and China are numerous, and they include, in addition to the two previous areas of conflict, the Iranian nuclear file, as well as a bunch of disputes over the economy, trade liberalization, linking China's Yuan with the U.S. dollar, and climate which emerged recently at the Copenhagen Summit.
As for the dispute over the Iranian nuclear program, it became clear that it was related to an open conflict between the U.S. and China. The objective of China was to achieve energy security as an indispensable factor for economic progress, and thus enhancing its status in the world and realizing the minimum limit of social and economic stability. On the other hand, the U.S. objective was to ensure the continuation and expansion of U.S. control over the global energy resources, in order to assert American leadership of the world by holding the keys of the international economy.
However, in spite of all these considerations, some researchers believe that this American escalation towards China is fraught with risks. In an article written by Martin Jacques, author of the book “When China Rules the World: the Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World," he considered that retreating America has to face rising China according to its own terms.
Jack adds: "In short, we can say, that the greatest fear is not the growing influence of China which will be unsuitable to its current role - at least in the short term - but the American frustration of its influence which is no longer as strong as it was or as it should be, in addition to America’s stubborn refusal to understand the Chinese position.
Jacques continues: “This could entail very serious consequences. Relations between the two countries might further deteriorate which would negatively influence the rest of the world. This situation will not benefit anyone; it will increase the difficulties in the way of China and it might slow down economic growth, while the United States would incur greater suffering”.
Jacques warns in his article from an American mistaken approach in dealing with China’s new rise. He says: "The American thinking should not confuse between China and the Soviet Union. China is totally a different opponent; its major strength lies not in its military gear, but in its economic influence, and not in a diplomatic show of force, but in the enormous patience it has. "
The Obama administration is facing a great paradox on the international and strategic levels. On the one hand, it is obliged to engage in a regressive fight in the political and military sense in both Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other hand, it should respond to the strategic dilemmas in the world resulting from the rise of new global leaders who will work on taking important parts from the cake of global economic interests. These parts, and according to the theory of mass conservation ( or energy conservation if you will), will definitely be taken from the American share. In one way or another, this will lead to a decline in the economic privileges and wealth of American companies, and to a deterioration in the level of luxury that the American people were living is.
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