Beijing has taken every possible opportunity to remind US officials that Taiwan is the central and most sensitive issue in Sino-US relations and to lecture them about living up to the commitments stated in the three communiques.
During the Bush-Jiang meetings in Shanghai and Beijing, and Vice President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) visit to Washington in May, the Chinese leaders kept raising the Taiwan issue, hoping to put the US on the defensive.
The Chinese complaints focused on the enhanced US arms sales to Taiwan, improved US-Taiwan relations and the George W. Bush administration's departure from former president Bill Clinton's "one China" policy.
Unlike Clinton, Bush refuses to accommodate Beijing's strategy to isolate Taiwan or to pressure Taiwan on China's behalf. Bush has not repeated Clinton's "three nos," but instead pledged to do "whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself" and approved the sale of a substantial arms package to Taiwan. Bush and top US officials have bluntly told China's leaders that the US disapproves of Beijing's aggressive military build-up and would not tolerate China's use of, or threat to use, force against Taiwan.
China's leaders are frustrated that Beijing has no military option -- as the US would certainly defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China -- and that its attempts to play the "American card" (ie, to get the US to assist Beijing's efforts to achieve unification), are going nowhere.
Taiwan is not the only problem dividing China and the US. A host of other bilateral, regional and global issues also shapes and affects their relations. They can be summed-up by four T's -- Taiwan, terrorism, Theater Missile Defense (TMD) and transfer of missiles and nuclear weapons technology. Let us consider each of these issues.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the US sought to build an international anti-terrorist coalition and enlist the support of China and many other states. Beijing has paid lip service to the cause, but its actual assistance has been rather limited and has come with strings attached.
Initially there was apprehension in Taiwan that if the US were to secure China's support on the anti-terror campaign, it might do so at Taiwan's expense. That did not happen, however. Taiwan has proven to be a friend indeed and has provided valuable support to the US in the war on terror.
Moreover, the US has not been pleased by Beijing's intensifying crackdown on the Uighurs and dissidents in Xingjiang under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Bush publicly reminded Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) last October in Shanghai that the Chinese authorities must not suppress the dissidents in Xingjiang and other national minorities in the name of the war against terror.
As a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's tilt toward the West and the Russian-US detente, China feels somewhat isolated, its strategic position adversely affected by the international realignment. China's earlier efforts to build an anti-US coalition through the "Shanghai Cooperation Council" have been neutralized by Putin's about-face and by other members' jumping on the US bandwagon. Much to Beijing's disappointment, the US seems to have taken advantage of the war against terror to station troops in Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics, encircling China.
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