Reason
October 15, 2009, 3:30pm
1
During his first visit to China next month, President Obama hopes to strengthen ties with Beijing on efforts to combat climate change, address the global financial crisis and contain nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran . Perhaps most important, he also aims to improve the U.S. relationship with China’s military.
The once-insular nation is broadening its international interests and investing around the globe, and its military is rapidly modernizing. So there is concern that U.S. and Chinese forces may find themselves bumping into each other without formal mechanisms in place for the two militaries to iron out disagreements.
But two developments have changed American thinking, analysts say. The first was the realization that every crisis between the United States and China – including the Chinese army crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989 and the accidental bombing of China’s embassy in Yugoslavia in 1999 by U.S. planes – has involved the nations’ militaries.
The second was the conclusion that the People’s Liberation Army wants to expand its activities around the world as China expands its international investments. Last year, China dispatched three navy ships outside of Asia for the first time in its modern history, sending them to fight piracy off Somalia alongside an international task force.
Hopefully the current superpower and the future superpower can build friendly ties and work together to solve global problems instead of falling into the historical tendency of great powers/superpowers to be hostile to competitors.
washingtonpost.com