A June 2003 analysis by China's foreign ministry stated: "In the next eight to 10 years, it is highly possible that the momentum of US strategic expansion will slow down after reaching its peak." Beijing's official English newspaper, the China Daily, no longer accepts submissions that criticize the US.
In fact, the two countries' official communication has reached an unprecedented magnitude since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Four traits are discernible in this relationship.
First, officials from Beijing and Washington are meeting at a higher frequency than ever before.
Second, these meetings have become institutionalized into regular events.
Third, the varieties of officials meeting their counterparts have increased from trade administrators all the way to military personnel, which was fully accomplished when the reluctant US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finally visited Beijing last November.
Fourth, the levels of officials holding meetings have expanded downward from heads of state in pompous ceremonies to department deputy assistant secretaries in substantive working sessions. Partly as a result, the US people are less inclined now than in the past to view China as an adversary, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll.
Last year, US neighbors both to the north and south played into China's hands, defying Washington in order to strengthen their economic ties with Beijing. Nevertheless, no one could blame Beijing for it.
Last October, then Canadian prime minister Paul Martin threatened to sell oil and timber to China instead of the US, if Bush refused to pay the US$5 billion refund as decreed by the North American Trade Association. Last November, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would sell F-16s to China and buy new fighters from Beijing, if Washington continued to sanction the supplies of spare parts to Caracas.
The good news about Beijing's recently acquired diplomatic aplomb is that a war across the Pacific is less likely, as China prefers extra-military tools such as economic and cultural measures to the military option in its pursuit of great power status. The rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army is mainly intended to boost Beijing's diplomacy, not intended for use in actual combat.
The bad news is that those who anticipate the continuing US dominance of East Asia may face an uncertain future. An emergence of China without bloodshed will encounter less resistance, and therefore be more likely to succeed.
When Bush and Hu meet this time, we should keep our eyes open for the third-party loser.
Lin Chong-Pin, a former deputy minister of defense, is president of the Foundation of Cross-Strait and International Studies in Taipei.
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