China IntentionsEssay Preview: China IntentionsReport this essayOsama bin Laden has done Communist China a favor. Because the minds of President Bush and congressional leaders are so concentrated on the war on terrorism, they have all but ignored Beijings aggressive military buildup. A strong possibility exists that by focusing so closely on Iraq, a focus that is understandable considering how unsettled the situation is, the United States could miss developments that could affect its standing in the rest of the world.
Among the many uncertainties of the Asian security environment, none is more compelling than that surrounding the modernization program of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. For some observers, the combination of economic growth and force improvement signals Beijings intention to establish regional supremacy. Others acknowledge that the PLA can spoil the United States interests; however, Beijings interest in regional stability, and the growing conventional capabilities of other regional powers, they tend to discount a PLA military threat. Chinese secrecy compounds the difficulty.
Chinas armed forces may not be a direct threat to the United States, but are good enough to cause plenty of trouble in their region and will be better in the future. China is one of the few nations to increase its defense spending in the post cold-war world, and is engaged in a major effort to upgrade its weapons capability for a possible quick strike on Taiwan. Taiwan would face an enormous challenge in repelling a determined Chinese attack. The island is too close to the mainland and too inferior in forces to hold out indefinitely. Its technological advantages would enable it to prolong the struggle, but not defeat China. If the United States were to get involved, it would face a nuclear-armed adversary capable of striking its American shores. That is not likely to happen, but it has to be kept in mind.
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China has already had its share of critics. One senior administration official remarked that China’s actions in the past five years might “be considered by President Obama a sign of confidence in the country’s economy.” But the official denied that China’s actions in recent years threatened U.S. security.
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After the attacks on Taiwan and in April 2012, China saw the United States withdrawing its foreign military presence at Camp David in Hawaii, in the hope of deterring any new attacks on the country by its Asian Pacific rivals. This was based on a widely accepted view that Washington needed to take steps to ensure that such actions could not be reversed. For example, during that debate, Obama said: “I would like to encourage Taiwan to take the step of leaving, not being able to defend itself.”