Dealing with China
IN RECENT days, Chinese officials have been visiting the United States, arranging lucrative business deals to pave the way for a state visit to the White House Thursday by President Hu Jintao. The planned trade talks and the carefully timed Chinese purchases of
Both sides have an enormous stake in getting this relationship right. On each side, there are ideologues and ardent nationalists who wish to depict the other as a threatening strategic rival. President Bush and his lunch guest from Beijing will have to be careful not to exacerbate tensions over Taiwan, Washington's relations with Japan and India, or threats to the nuclear non-proliferation regime from North Korea and Iran.
What should be obvious about these contentious issues is the degree to which China and the US are becoming dependent on each other's cooperation. Beijing, which has been conducting a military build-up that seems aimed primarily at deterring Taiwan from grabbing for independence, has only Washington to rely on as a mediator capable of restraining such Taiwanese politicians.
The Bush administration, because of its hard-line refusal to bargain directly with North Korea, has given China the same sort of key mediator's role with Pyongyang that Washington has had with Taiwan.
Just as China would be less in need of America's restraining influence on Taiwan if the communist leaders paid less heed to their own nationalist hotheads, the US would not be so dependent on Chinese mediation with North Korea if Bush accepted the unavoidable necessity of negotiating a pragmatic deal with the abhorrent regime in Pyongyang.
In the same vein, when Bush agreed to sell India nuclear technology, he was not only violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but also confirming Beijing's suspicions of a US intention to limit China's influence in Asia -- a containment policy for China. What both sides need, however, is cooperation.
A key priority for Bush in his talks with Hu Jintao should be to obtain China's cooperation in efforts to present Iran with a menu of incentives and disincentives that may persuade that regime to cede its claimed right to enrich uranium inside Iran. There would, of course, be a price for Chinese cooperation on this matter. It would have to be part of a more comprehensive set of understandings -- a strategic partnership. But in the same way economic trade has to be a two-way street, geopolitical cooperation has to provide comparable benefits to both partners.
