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Democrats make their mark on US policies

Since the Democrats took control of both houses of the US Congress in early January, a clear shift has taken place in the administration of President George W. Bush in terms of foreign affairs policies.

Washington has opened up bilateral negotiations with North Korea and foregone Chinese mediation, while demanding that Pyongyang freeze its nuclear facilities rather demanding that it destroys them.

The Bush administration has also discussed the violence in Iraq with Iran and Syria. Meanwhile, although the US and China have launched the semiannual Strategic Economic Dialogue and the heads of their commerce and treasury departments meet annually, the administration filed WTO complaints in February and again last month against Beijing for handing out government subsidies and violating intellectual property rights.

The Bush administration believes that Sino-US relations are complex and must become more direct, constructive and cooperative. It hopes that China will become a responsible power.

Although Beijing accepts this view, it demands that Washington also shoulder responsibility.

In light of China's recent anti-satellite missile test and its massive national defense budget of US$45 billion, the US believes that China's military modernization is beyond the scope of a cross-strait war and is in fact designed to match US military capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region.

But from the perspective of Chinese experts, the US-Japan security alliance, the US-South Korea free-trade agreement and the joint naval drills of the US, Japan and India are all aimed at containing China.

If the Democrat-controlled Congress is willing to take a stand on the Iraq War, it would not be surprising if it also proposed strong measures for confronting China on its undervalued yuan, rampant CD-piracy and industrial export subsidies.

About a dozen bills aimed at China are sitting in the Senate and the House of Representatives, including bills demanding the revaluation of the yuan, a ban on the import of Chinese cars and a reassessment of the annual renewal of China's Normal Trade Relations status.

Last year, the US' biggest trade deficit was with China, at US$232.5 billion or about one-third of its total trade deficit. In its WTO complaints, the US accuses China of violating intellectual property rights and interfering with the entry of US goods on Chinese markets, although pressure on Beijing to revaluate the yuan is another major issue.

Quick passage of the free-trade agreement between the US and South Korea will play an important role in US pressure on China to make economic changes.

China has chosen compromise as its strategy to deal with US economic pressure. The US' direct dialogue with North Korea and Iran has diminished Beijing's importance as a mediator.

The close exchanges between top US and Chinese officials are not necessarily a sign of cordial relations, but rather of the coexistence of conflict and cooperation and the fact that soft and tough approaches are being combined.

The Sino-US relationship is complex, as is the relationship between Taiwan and China. The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) choice to deal simply with straightforward trade, economic and transportation issues while ignoring Taiwan's participation in international organizations and China's military threat will not help keep Taiwan out of harm's way.

Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.

Translated by Eddy Chang and Perry Svensson
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