Are rocky times ahead for the United States and China? Ted Galen Carpenter, vice-president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, thinks so and explains why in a must-read post on RealClearPolitcs.
Here is the beginning of it:
A nasty spat has erupted between Washington and Beijing over the Obama administration’s arms sales to Taiwan. As soon as the US made the official announcement of the US$6.4 billion package last Friday, Beijing responded with both harsh words and retaliatory measures. Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei called in US Ambassador Jon Huntsman for a dressing down. Beijing also suspended scheduled military exchange programs and threatened to impose sanctions against any American company involved in the production or distribution of weapons destined for Taiwan.
The conventional wisdom in the United States is that this episode is no big deal. Those who take a relaxed view contend that China’s reaction is in line with its response to previous arms sales. The new brouhaha, the reasoning goes, will subside and relations will soon return to normal.
Perhaps. But the arms sale showdown is just the latest in a series of incidents stoking tensions between China and the US. Those tensions encompass economic, diplomatic and security disputes.
Go to the link to read all of the details.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.