Military to the Rescue: Gen. Pace the Perfect Diplomat in China
In the wake of Vice President Cheney’s biting comments about China and the ugly reaction that ensued (post from ACB), it looks as if the task of cleaning up the VP’s mess has been placed on the already-full plate of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace. Pace is currently in China, where he is meeting with his Chinese counterparts and will view Chinese air and ground capabilities in Shenyang, east of Beijing — a potentially important symbol of greater Chinese military openness. Here are highights of the considerably more friendly and diplomatic remarks from the Marine General, from a news conference at the American embassy in Beijing on Thursday:
- Capability and Intent: Pace acknowledged China’s not-insignificant military capability but disavowed the threat of any Chinese intent to start a war. “Clearly, both China and the United States have enormous military capacity,” he said. “But equally clearly, neither country has the intent to go to war with the other country. So absent intent, I don’t find threat.” Pace is smart enough to leave the door open. Time can change intent. And by establishing China’s “enormous” military capacity and juxtaposing it with US capacity, Pace enables the military R&D, hardware, and services industry’s case for more defense budget spending. Thus placating key parts of his military constituency.
- Military Coordination: It’s important that Pace went on record in support of increased military-to-military contact between the US and China. A number of program proposals emerged in this area from Pace’s visit to China: 1) an exchange program for young officers and military academy cadets and midshipmen; 2) Expanding joint search-and-rescue excercises; 3) Increased cooperation of humanitarian operations. Nothing earth-shattering here, but it’s better than nothing. Now we’ll see whether these kinds of cooperative measures actually move forward through the military command.
- Transparency: Pace emphasized the importance of transparency in military affairs. As opposed to Cheney and fomer DefSec Donald Rumsfeld’s bluntly critical speeches on this issue, Pace was more analytical than threatening. He used reassuring words without backing down from the key point: “The biggest fear I have for the future (of U.S.-Chinese relations) is miscalculation and misunderstanding based on misinformation,” Pace said. “Even best friends keep something from each other,” he said. “This is not about being completely open about everything.”
This is a great step forward to increased communication and cooperation between the US and Chinese militaries. But I find it somewhat ironic that the task of diplomacy in the Bush Administration has fallen to military officers.
March 25, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Being that military is in control of its’ people as does communism (GI-Government Issued)…it seems normal that they would listen to the military man. But they also can gain knowledge from working with our military and use that to their advantage-both China and the US are sniffing around for what the other is doing, has etc…
March 25, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Maybe it is just me but everytime I see poor Pace, he looks like he is ready to throw up!
Also what do you make of the new UN sanctions that were passed. I saw that Russia was pulling back from Iran the other day when there was a blurb in their paper that Iran owed them money…how’d we get to China to agree to this I wonder? I hope Bush don’t see this as a green light to start dropping the bombs…which he may do regardless…
March 25, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I don’t think Russia will “pull back” from Iran so much as use Iran’s woes in the international community to help grow its profits and market share in energy, and as a political shield against mounting concerns over Russia’s systemic rights and democracy failures. In any other time, Condi and half of State would be spending much of its time worrying over Russia’s current trajectory, but with Iraq, Afghanistan, China — and now Iran — there’s just no time or will. Putin will do his best to make sure it stays that way.
As for Iran: China didn’t have much of a choice. This was a unanimous vote that included Indonesia and South Africa. China might have chosen to lead this group in dissent, at the risk of being seen as the chief obstacle to a UN consensus. China also might have abstained, which is has often done with UN votes that make it uncomfortable, but that would have viewed as tantamount to open dissent (and rightly so). I think you’re right to make note of this as an interesting development; could be a sort of payback to the US for its begrudging agreement on negotiations with North Korea. As for bombs — I still don’t see it happening during the Bush Presidency.
March 25, 2007 at 9:03 pm
More Thinking China Blogs
The other day I was tagged as one of five thinking blogs by the Silicon Hutong blog, which required me to tag five more thinking blogs, which I did in this post, entitled, Thinking China Bloggers And More. My tag included Peking Duck and Jottings from …
March 29, 2007 at 3:54 am
Dear China Redux,
Does your website send out an e-newsletter or e-updates via e-mail? If so, I would be most grateful if someone would kindly add me to the e-distribution list.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ted Gover
tgover@pacificresearch.net