Vol. 75/No. 23      June 13, 2011

U.S. admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he hoped the visit would lead to more regular exchange and “a bit of a relationship” with “some trust and transparency.” Amid building tensions both sides seek to avoid open conflict. Reuters paraphrased Mullen as expressing concern that any “miscommunications or mishaps do not inadvertently spin out of control.”

At the same time, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, objected to the decision to allow General Bingde to tour what she called sensitive U.S. military facilities.

The U.S. rulers nervously watch as Beijing accelerates its military development, projects its navy further from its shores, and expands its economic and diplomatic influence from Africa to Latin America.

One place the two competing interests intersect is in Pakistan, both a long-time close ally of Beijing and a key war ally of Washington, which it depends on for massive military and economic aid. The Beijing-Islamabad alliance is marked by their shared rivalry with New Delhi. Washington, for its part, seeks to de-escalate tensions on the Indian subcontinent and wield its alliance with the governments of both India and Pakistan as part of its grand strategy to contain China’s growing influence in the broader region.

General Bingde sought to downplay China’s military advances during his trip. “China does not have the capability to challenge the United States,” he insisted at a May 18 joint news conference at the Pentagon. The Chinese official said Beijing’s military is technologically at least 20 years behind Washington. But recent Chinese advances give reason to assume its development track will not run parallel to that of Washington. The Chinese military has taken advantage of U.S. advances to leap over stages.

China’s draft military budget this year is 12.7 percent higher than its spending last year, while Washington is looking to cut its military budget.

In April Beijing conducted the second flight of its J-20 stealth fighter jet, unveiled in January. Following the most recent test, the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, described the J-20 as “a high-performance stealth aircraft … superior in most, if not all, cardinal performance parameters against the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.” A U.S. F-117 stealth bomber shot down in Serbia in 1999 is believed to have ended up in China, according to Investor’s Business Daily.

Beijing is building up its navy and increasingly conducting naval operations farther from its shores. Chinese scientists have developed the world’s first antiship ballistic missile, known as the “carrier killer,” capable of carrying out accurate strikes against aircraft carriers from a great distance. These steps mean that for the first time since World War II Washington’s naval predominance is challenged.

The Chinese government claims the Yellow, East China, and South China seas as part of its economic territory, despite objections from Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, which also claim parts of that region. Washington, too, asserts its “right” to sail throughout the Pacific and continues to arm the island of Taiwan off China’s coast.  
 
Contest over Pakistan
Pakistan’s parliament condemned the May 2 assassination of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil by U.S. Navy Seals as a violation of the country’s sovereignty. One Pakistani official “joked” that they might let Chinese military experts “take a look” at the wreckage of the U.S. high-tech stealth helicopter that crashed at bin Laden’s compound.

Following a visit to Pakistan by John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Islamabad agreed to return the remains of the helicopter.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao welcomed Pakistani prime minister Yousef Gilani to Beijing May 18, where Wen announced the Chinese government will provide Pakistan with up to 50 JF-17 fighter jets. Taking on U.S. accusations that Islamabad had been shielding bin Laden, Wen praised Pakistan’s “huge sacrifices” in the “war against terrorism” and denounced Washington’s raid.

Almost half of all the arms exported by China in the last decade—$3.13 billion worth—went to Pakistan, which has the world’s fifth largest army.

Upon returning to Pakistan, Gilani said that Beijing agreed to take over operations of Pakistan’s Chinese-built Gwadar port in Baluchistan Province, close to the Straits of Hormuz. Islamabad has requested that Beijing also build a naval base there, although it is unclear whether Beijing is interested and capable of doing this now. This “would be the first overseas location offering support to the People’s Liberation Army navy for future out-of-area missions,” note the Financial Times.

In another recent show of expanding military capabilities, China dispatched four military transport planes and a guided-missile frigate to Libya in March to evacuate some Chinese nationals working there. The Investor’s Business Daily called the operation “unprecedented.” It said, “China has never had the will or capacity to project naval power this far—5,400 miles—from its capital.”

Meanwhile, Beijing continues to claim more market share in Latin America. China’s Development Bank is building a railroad “dry canal” in Colombia to ship commodities from the Atlantic to the Pacific, thus competing with the U.S.-dominated Panama Canal. China is already Colombia’s second-largest trading partner. The dry canal could push U.S. companies out of top place. China became Brazil’s largest trading partner in 2010. It now ranks as the third biggest investor in Latin America.

According to the semiofficial People’s Daily Online, China has become Africa’s largest trading partner. The value of that trade grew from $10 billion in 2000 to $127 billion last year. China is also the number one trading partner for Australia, Japan, and New Zealand, as well as Asian semicolonial countries.  
 
 
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