Why does US rev up China threat?
By Michael T. Klare (The Nation)
Updated: 2005-10-08 15:38

The third notable event was the release, in July, of the Pentagon's report on Chinese combat capabilities, The Military Power of the People's Republic of China. According to press reports, publication of this unclassified document was delayed for several weeks in order to remove or soften some of the more pointedly anti-Chinese comments, to avoid further provoking China before George W. Bush's November visit there. In many ways the published version is judicious in tone, stressing the weaknesses as well as the strengths of China's military establishment. Nevertheless, the main thrust of the report is that China is expanding its capacity to fight wars beyond its own territory and that this effort constitutes a dangerous challenge to global order. "The pace and scope of China's military build-up are, already, such as to put regional military balances at risk," the report states. "Current trends in China's military modernization could provide China with a force capable of prosecuting a range of military operations in Asia — well beyond Taiwan — potentially posing a credible threat to modern militaries operating in the region."

China's attempt to purchase American-based Unocal, a business transaction, was rejected by the US company under US congressional pressure, unexpectedly setting off rifts in U.S.-China relations. [CBS/AP]

While much of this was going on, the American public and mass media were preoccupied with another source of tension between the United States and China: the attempted purchase of the California-based Unocal Corporation by the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). This attempt received far greater attention in the media than did the events described above, yet it will have a far less significant impact on U.S.-Chinese relations than will the Pentagon's shift to a more belligerent, anti-Chinese stance — one that greatly increases the likelihood of a debilitating and dangerous military competition between the United States and China.

What lies behind this momentous shift? At its root is the continuing influence of conservative strategists who have long championed a policy of permanent U.S. military supremacy. This outlook was first expressed in 1992 in the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) for fiscal years 1994-99, a master blueprint for U.S. dominance in the post-cold war era. Prepared under the supervision of then-Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and leaked to the press in early 1992, the DPG called for concerted efforts to prevent the rise of a future military competitor. "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival...that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union," the document stated. Accordingly, "we [must] endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power." This has remained the guiding principle for U.S. supremacists ever since.

In this new century the injunction to prevent the emergence of a new rival "that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union" can apply only to China, as no other potential adversary possesses a credible capacity to "generate global power." Hence the preservation of American supremacy into "the far realm of the future," as then-Governor George W. Bush put it in a 1999 campaign speech, required the permanent containment of China — and this is what Rice, Rumsfeld and their associates set out to do when they assumed office in early 2001.