U.S. Senator James Webb (D-VA) is in Burma today. News reports indicate that he will be meeting with junta leader Than Shwe in what is being billed as the first ever meeting between the junta chief and a U.S. official. Coming just days after the regime extended the detention of Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the meeting will certainly serve to validate the junta at a time when international revulsion has reached one of its periodic, crisis driven peaks. This is unfortunate. But there is more at stake than …
Friday’s terrorist bombing of Jakarta’s JW-Marriott and Ritz-Carlton is truly a reminder not just to Indonesia, but to the world, that however well we may be preventing terrorist attacks, there is another team on the field. Terrorists can adjust tactics, morph organizations, and strike in unexpected ways at unexpected times. Details are not yet sifted in Jakarta, but indications are that the July 17 attacks were the work of Al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), or splinter groups thereof. Police are focused on the possibility that suicide …
The Chinese government is blaming the violence in its west on a woman named Rebiya Kadeer. They are calling her a “an ironclad separatist colluding with terrorists and Islamic extremists.” The Chinese Communist Party has a long and estranged relationship with the truth. And the vilification of Kadeer ranks right up there with their portrayal of Dalai Lama as an “evil splitist.” (In fact, the People’s Daily has called Kadeer a “Uighur Dalai Lama.”) The government rhetoric is primarily aimed at a domestic audience, intended to stir Han Chinese nationalism …
China has two faces. There is the face of Chinese economic success, the managers of China’s reserves, the CEOs of China’s quasi-private enterprises, the English-speaking, tailored diplomats everywhere from Beijing to Washington. And then there is the face of the People’s Armed Police and the crackdown in Xinjiang. There is a modernizing China sending bright and optimistic students out into the world, packing the best graduate programs. There are people in China making for themselves material lives that generations of their forbearers could not dream of. Then there is the …
The draft resolution on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs reportedly agreed to by the security council’s permanent five members, plus Japan and South Korea, is nothing new. In fact, it is full of references back to unenforced provisions of previous resolutions, particularly from October 2006. More than anything else, its weakness points to two things: The critical need for missile defense and China’s unhelpful role in addressing the problem of a nuclear North Korea.
It is nice that the President is reaching across the aisle for an Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. Foreign policy should be bi-partisan. It is a demonstration to the Chinese that there is more that unites Americans than divides us. The selection of Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., a businessman and free trader, will also send a positive signal regarding the central importance of truly free markets in our interaction with the Chinese. Of course, from the President’s perspective, choosing a Republican is probably also an effort to …
Initial Chinese reaction to the launch of North Korea’s missile, in clear violation of UN Security Council Resolutions, is true to form. They will go along with international consensus just as far as they need to in order to blunt it. Last time around, in 2006, the PRC played the familiar role of North Korean patron state, even as they expressed concern over its missile launch and nuke test. It is precisely because the Chinese blocked action in the Security Council that would have permitted enforcement that we are back …
Congress yesterday approved legislation to upgrade South Korea’s military procurement status to equal that of members of NATO, Australia, Japan and New Zealand (“NATO+3”). The legislation, authored by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), is expected to be signed by President Bush within the next few days. With this action, Congress has remedied a long-standing disparity in U.S. treatment of a critical ally by recognizing the vital contribution made by South Korea to peace and stability in Asia. South Korea has been a stalwart defender of democracy in Asia and stands poised …
