US Secretary of State Con-doleezza Rice warned this week that China must make significant structural changes in its economic policies, lest it remain "a problem for the international economy."
In an interview on Wednesday, Rice also laid out the administration's concerns about China's military buildup, its human-rights record and its restrictions on religious freedom.
Her unusually sharp criticism was a clear indication of the administration's ambivalence and frustration with China, even as officials prepare for a state visit next month by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). During the interview at the State Department with reporters and an editor of the New York Times, which coincided with a review of diplomatic plans for the autumn that she has been conducting with her top aides, Rice took time to explain why China seems to present such a diplomatic quandary.
"The relationship with China is just big and complicated, and it's got good parts and it's got not so good parts," she said. "But what we are trying to stay focused on is the understanding that China is going to be influential in international politics one way or another. It's a major power, and it's going to be an even more major power."
In a separate interview this week, Robert Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state who just returned from Beijing, said the Chinese leadership did not disguise its eagerness to maintain an amicable relationship with the US.
"The overwhelming sense I got was that they do not want a conflict with the United States," Zoellick said.
The US is hedging to a degree, he said, by enhancing its relations with some of China's neighbors, including Australia, India and Japan.
For now, China appears to be on something close to probation with the Bush administration, with China's critics in Congress and with leaders of industry.
One important measure is whether the Chinese will choose to revalue their currency further in the coming months. A 2.1 percent increase in the value of its currency in July was viewed in Washington as a start, but inadequate by itself.
"A lot depends on what the Chinese do," Rice said, speaking more generally.
She made it clear that she was concerned about China's military buildup, which she said "looks outsized for its regional interests."
"We're going to continue to press" on "human rights and religious freedom," she added.
"But on balance," she said, "it is a good relationship" that has "a considerable benefit in the war on terrorism," among others issues.
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