2012-02-13
China's leader-in-waiting begins a U.S. visit.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (R) poses with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden before talks at a hotel in Beijing, Aug. 19, 2011.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping began a four-day visit to the United States on Monday amid warnings that mutual trust was at a new low due to concerns over potential U.S. military build-up in the Asia Pacific and a slew of economic and diplomatic disputes.
Chinese official media warned of a potential return to Cold War thinking, should the U.S. continue to fear China's rise and fail to adjust to its newfound economic power as global banker amid the continuing debt crisis.
For Xi, who looks set to take over China's presidency from incumbent Hu Jintao at a key leadership transition later this year, the visit is the first in 27 years and is crucial if he is to establish his image overseas as a leader-in-waiting.
But he must also successfully project an image back home, as a strong leader capable of defending China's military and nationalistic interests against potential threat or encroachment.
Military presence
Typically, arms sales by Washington to Taiwan are cited as the greatest thorn in Beijing's side which could potentially derail the relationship, but President Obama's recent plans to scale up U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region now seem to have eclipsed the issue in official rhetoric.
In comments published ahead of his trip, Xi warned against a build-up of U.S. military presence on its doorstep.
"At a time when people long for peace, stability and development, to deliberately give prominence to the military security agenda, scale up military deployment and strengthen military alliances is not really what most countries in the region hope to see," Xi said in written and translated comments published in the Washington Post just ahead of his trip.
Beijing appears keen to give the impression that the complex bilateral relationship with Washington could deteriorate into a new Cold War of mistrust, with a series of warnings published in official media ahead of Xi's departure.
"The China-U.S. relationship is encountering severe tests and facing the absence of strategic mutual trust," according to a signed article in the English-language China Daily newspaper on Monday, one of several devoted to Xi's trip.
"As a Chinese aphorism says, 'a boat sailing against the current must forge ahead or be swept downstream.' The relationship is just at this critical juncture," said the article, signed by five foreign policy experts at China's top universities.
The article called for a psychological adjustment in the wake of China's growing international power, citing China's growing international role as global lender in the wake of the financial crisis.
"Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the power gap between China and the United States has narrowed," the article said.
Warning of a nationalistic political elite pushing behind the scenes for a more militarily assertive China, the article said Beijing would resist any attempts to engage on the topic of human rights or political reform.
Human rights
"The Chinese government remains highly vigilant against America's 'export of democracy' and 'human rights diplomacy,'" the article said, adding that "Chinese political elites are frustrated at the appearance that China's security environment does not seem to have improved."
The paper also carried an opinion article by Elisabeth Economy, Asia Studies senior fellow at the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations in New York, who called for a joint project such as a free trade agreement to give purpose to the bilateral relationship.
"The simple truth is that the U.S. and China have had few reasons to celebrate their relationship since China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001," Economy wrote.
She said efforts to cooperate on a wide range of international issues, including North Korea's nuclear program, climate change, and Iran had "fallen well short of full cooperation."
"The result is a bilateral relationship that is characterized above all by uncertainty, mistrust and frequent friction," Economy wrote, citing "profound" differences over the recent draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria and tensions over disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Here, "China's moves have run up against opposition from some of its neighbors and a consequent enhanced U.S. presence," she said.
Xi, who once visited the American Midwest as an official in charge of China's pork industry, is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama and other top officials in Washington on Tuesday, traveling on to the state of Iowa on Wednesday to meet local politicians and families with whom he stayed on his 1985 trip.
He will stop off in Ireland and Turkey on the way home.
Reported by Luisetta Mudie.
Chinese official media warned of a potential return to Cold War thinking, should the U.S. continue to fear China's rise and fail to adjust to its newfound economic power as global banker amid the continuing debt crisis.
For Xi, who looks set to take over China's presidency from incumbent Hu Jintao at a key leadership transition later this year, the visit is the first in 27 years and is crucial if he is to establish his image overseas as a leader-in-waiting.
But he must also successfully project an image back home, as a strong leader capable of defending China's military and nationalistic interests against potential threat or encroachment.
Military presence
Typically, arms sales by Washington to Taiwan are cited as the greatest thorn in Beijing's side which could potentially derail the relationship, but President Obama's recent plans to scale up U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region now seem to have eclipsed the issue in official rhetoric.
In comments published ahead of his trip, Xi warned against a build-up of U.S. military presence on its doorstep.
"At a time when people long for peace, stability and development, to deliberately give prominence to the military security agenda, scale up military deployment and strengthen military alliances is not really what most countries in the region hope to see," Xi said in written and translated comments published in the Washington Post just ahead of his trip.
Beijing appears keen to give the impression that the complex bilateral relationship with Washington could deteriorate into a new Cold War of mistrust, with a series of warnings published in official media ahead of Xi's departure.
"The China-U.S. relationship is encountering severe tests and facing the absence of strategic mutual trust," according to a signed article in the English-language China Daily newspaper on Monday, one of several devoted to Xi's trip.
"As a Chinese aphorism says, 'a boat sailing against the current must forge ahead or be swept downstream.' The relationship is just at this critical juncture," said the article, signed by five foreign policy experts at China's top universities.
The article called for a psychological adjustment in the wake of China's growing international power, citing China's growing international role as global lender in the wake of the financial crisis.
"Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the power gap between China and the United States has narrowed," the article said.
Warning of a nationalistic political elite pushing behind the scenes for a more militarily assertive China, the article said Beijing would resist any attempts to engage on the topic of human rights or political reform.
Human rights
"The Chinese government remains highly vigilant against America's 'export of democracy' and 'human rights diplomacy,'" the article said, adding that "Chinese political elites are frustrated at the appearance that China's security environment does not seem to have improved."
The paper also carried an opinion article by Elisabeth Economy, Asia Studies senior fellow at the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations in New York, who called for a joint project such as a free trade agreement to give purpose to the bilateral relationship.
"The simple truth is that the U.S. and China have had few reasons to celebrate their relationship since China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001," Economy wrote.
She said efforts to cooperate on a wide range of international issues, including North Korea's nuclear program, climate change, and Iran had "fallen well short of full cooperation."
"The result is a bilateral relationship that is characterized above all by uncertainty, mistrust and frequent friction," Economy wrote, citing "profound" differences over the recent draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria and tensions over disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Here, "China's moves have run up against opposition from some of its neighbors and a consequent enhanced U.S. presence," she said.
Xi, who once visited the American Midwest as an official in charge of China's pork industry, is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama and other top officials in Washington on Tuesday, traveling on to the state of Iowa on Wednesday to meet local politicians and families with whom he stayed on his 1985 trip.
He will stop off in Ireland and Turkey on the way home.
Reported by Luisetta Mudie.
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