| Next crisis may be a weapons sale away 04/12/2001 By Jim Landers and Robert Dodge / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON – The United States and China have come through another security scrape without resorting to arms or diplomatic rupture. Analysts warn that more problems lie ahead, as both sides struggle with internal debates about whether their countries should be friends, foes or – to use President Bush's phrase – "strategic competitors."
"We're not through with this crisis, and we're not through with confrontation with the Chinese," said David Shambaugh, a China scholar at George Washington University.
Later this month, Mr. Bush must decide whether to sell Aegis anti-missile ships and Patriot missiles to Taiwan, which wants the advanced U.S. weapons to protect itself from Chinese missile attack.
Conservative Republicans suspicious of China's intentions are pressing the administration to approve the weapons sale, while Beijing has warned that the new arms would unacceptably alter the military balance across the Taiwan Straits.
"This has the potential to be a major crisis," Mr. Shambaugh said.
U.S.-China relations have been on a downward spiral since a 1996 confrontation over Taiwan, said Ronald Montaperto, dean of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
"We fall, stabilize, then fall some more," he said, and another fall is almost certain to occur when the administration announces what weapons it is willing to sell to Taiwan.
"There's a lot of commitment on both sides to keep this relationship from going really sour, and that's what keeps it going," he said. "But this relationship is deeply, deeply troubled."
Both sides have backed away from prior confrontations when economic ties trumped political differences. James Lilley, a former U.S. Ambassador to China, says the same result is likely this time.
"After they hit bottom, both sides wise up," Mr. Lilley said. "This island crisis is not good for business."
The confrontations are harrowing, however. Several members of Congress and policy analysts said Wednesday that China harmed its image with the American public by holding the American crew and demanding an apology from the Bush administration.
"China did not do itself any favors in the way they acted in this situation," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso. "If anything, it bolsters the argument that we need to stand firm with Taiwan."
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, said China's behavior "may have the effect of strengthening support for sales of weapons systems to Taiwan."
It may also strengthen the hand of those who feel China and the United States risk going to war unless they check each other's aggressive behavior.
Kenneth deGraffenreid of the Institute of World Politics called China "the most relentless national security threat we face today" after a 1999 congressional investigation found that Beijing had acquired secret documents on some of the most sensitive U.S. weapons systems.
China's military, meanwhile, has agitated for modernized weapons systems since the 1991 Gulf War. In 1996, when China fired missiles over Taiwan as it prepared for presidential elections, the Clinton administration sent two aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. A Chinese general warned a visiting Defense Department official that China was ready to go as far as dropping a nuclear bomb on Los Angeles.
Both governments backed away from such rhetoric. And in former President Bill Clinton's last visit to Beijing, he said the United States looked forward to treating China as a "strategic partner."
Mr. Bush campaigned for a change in that formula from strategic partner to strategic competitor – a move viewed in Beijing as taking a harder line.
Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said there could be less than meets the eye in such language.
"There is a great deal of confusion on those bumper stickers," he said.
Mr. Lardy said economics continues to pull both sides back from security challenges.
"Trade has grown very steadily and rapidly over the last decade," he said. "The economic side has a great deal more stability."
The Hainan island incident left many analysts convinced that it's time for Americans to buckle their seat belts in dealing with China.
"This is really a trend of rising Chinese nationalism, of increasing sensitivity about their borders, of suspicion of U.S. intentions toward China, of demanding U.S. respect for China," said Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs.
"These underlying trends aren't going to go away."
Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, said the incident "dampens the hope we had all begun to feel as we have opened up trade with China."
"I think it's going to take awhile for our feelings to heal and for us to be back on a track of improving our relationship with China," Mr. Turner said.
John Foarde, vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said China would remain a challenge for the Bush administration.
"The U.S.-China bilateral relationship across the board is not as robust as anybody would like to see," he said.
Mr. Shambaugh agreed.
"This should be a wake-up call to Bush that the China relationship cannot be neglected," he said. "We're not out of the woods yet."
Staff writer Christopher Lee of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report
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