Ted Galen Carpenter

while the world's attention has been focused on North Korea's recent nuclear test and satellite launch (which was a thinly disguised test for a long-range ballistic missile), important developments regarding the nuclear issue were also taking place in South Korea. If they continue, those trends could be a game changer and compel both the United States and China to confront some difficult policy choices.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou startled observers with a trip to the island ofItu Aba (also known as Taiping) in the South China Sea. It was a move certain to annoy Beijing, yet it came from the leader of a party, the Kuomintang (KMT), that had seemed committed to a more conciliatory approach. Indeed, in early November, Chinese President Xi Jinping had sat down with Ma in Singapore for the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of Taiwan and the mainland since the communist victory in China's civil war in 1949.This latest move seemed a stark reversal of such responsible behavior.

Speculation had simmered for weeks that the United States intended to conduct naval patrols in the South China Sea to challenge Beijing's territorial claims there. Pentagon leaders seemed especially eager to defy China's position that building "reclaimed" or artificial reefs or islands also created rights to new territorial waters surrounding those creations. The widespread speculation was confirmed on October 27, when the Navy sent the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen on a "freedom of navigation" patrol within 12-miles of man-made islands.

Expectations were modest for the summit meetings in Washington between China's President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama, and the results matched those restrained expectations. Fortunately, the Obama administration spurned the calls of Republican hawks, including presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina, to adopt a highly confrontational stance in the talks. Rubio (along with former candidate Scott Walker) had even urged the president to rescind the invitation he had given to Xi for a state visit. That action would have been an egregious insult to the Chinese government and people and caused serious damage to the bilateral relationship. Instead, the atmosphere throughout the talks was cordial and businesslike.

Although there are expectations that the summit meeting between China's President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama will be cordial and produce a constructive dialogue, there are influential elements in the United States who seem unable to restrain their hostility toward China. That sentiment is especially evident among the Republican Party's presidential candidates. It is an unfortunate attitude that could do serious damage to the bilateral relationship.

Global attention has focused on the plunge in the Shanghai stock market and mounting evidence that China’s economic growth is slowing dramatically. Moreover, the contagion appears to be spreading, characterized by extreme volatility and alarming declines in America’s own equity markets. Those worries are compounded because there always have been doubts about the accuracy of Beijing’s official economic statistics. Even before the current downturn, some outside experts believed that Chinese officials padded the results, making the country’s performance appear stronger than it actually was. If China is now teetering on the brink of recession, the political incentives for officials to conceal the extent of the damage would be quite powerful.

U.S. presidential election campaigns are supposed to include sober discussions of the most crucial issues facing the country. Unfortunately, the reality rarely corresponds to that ideal, and the current conduct of candidates seeking their party’s nomination for the 2016 election is no exception. One issue that should be front and center in the campaign is U.S. policy toward China. Instead, that topic receives surprisingly little attention—especially compared to the obsession over every aspect of Middle East policy. When it is not ignored, candidates too often take shrill positions merely to score cheap political points with disgruntled constituencies. Given the great importance of the bilateral relationship, such posturing is unfortunate and could become dangerous.

The Obama administration’s “strategic pivot” (or rebalancing of military forces) to East Asia has received considerable attention both in the region and in the United States over the past few years. With good reason, Chinese leaders wonder whether the pivot is the initial stage of a containment policy directed against their country. Other moves by Washington, including reviving the moribund U.S. military presence in the Philippines, strengthening the traditional bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and forging unprecedented security ties with Vietnam and other wary neighbors, have reinforced Chinese suspicions.

Although wars between even small nations are tragic for the populations involved and can cause wider problems in the international system, the prospect of armed conflict between major powers is the true nightmare scenario—especially in an era of nuclear weapons. The two world wars that so horribly scarred the twentieth century provide important reminders of the dire consequences of great-power conflicts. It follows that all responsible major countries should avoid actions that increase the risk of needless confrontations. Unfortunately, the level of danger from such conduct appears to be rising rather than declining.

East Asia’s security environment is becoming increasingly unpredictable and confrontational. The two principal causes are North Korea’s continuing rogue behavior, accompanied by that country’s de facto status as a nuclear-weapons state, and China’s emergence as a major regional economic and military power. US leaders are deeply concerned about both developments and seek to preserve America’s role as East Asia’s hegemon — a status the United States has enjoyed since the end of World War II.

Even before the P5 +1 negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program reach a conclusion, hawks in the United States are beating their war drums. Longtime neoconservative activist Joshua Muravchik published a piece in theWashington Post on March 13 ridiculing the notion that diplomacy might work with Tehran, insisting that war as the only prudent alternative. Less than two weeks later, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton published an op-ed in the New York Times advocating air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.

The impressive strength of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in recent local elections has caused a surge of speculation in both East Asia and the United States about whether the Taiwan issue might become the latest source of tension in China-U.S. relations. There is no question that the election results signaled a dramatic repudiation of President Ma Ying-jeou and the governing Kuomintang Party (KMT). There were multiple reasons for the KMT’s electoral debacle, including the rise of the youth-oriented “Sunflower” reformist movement and its potent complaints about a corrupt, unresponsive political system.

Taiwan’s governing Kuomintang Party (KMT) suffered a brutal defeat in just-completed elections for local offices. Indeed, the extent of the KMT’s rout made the losses the Democratic Party experienced in U.S. midterm congressional elections look like a mild rebuke. The setback was so severe that President Ma Ying-jeou announced that he would relinquish his post as party chairman. Although that decision does not directly affect Ma’s role as head of the government, it reflects his rapidly eroding political influence.

Chinese leaders find themselves in a most uncomfortable position as animosity between Washington and Moscow reaches levels not seen since the Cold War. Beijing would desperately like to stay out of the diplomatic fray, but that is a difficult stance to maintain, given the important political, economic, and strategic relations that China has with both sides.

Chinese leaders find themselves in a most uncomfortable position as animosity between Washington and Moscow reaches levels not seen since the Cold War. Beijing would desperately like to stay out of the diplomatic fray, but that is a difficult stance to maintain, given the important political, economic, and strategic relations that China has with both sides.

Chinese leaders find themselves in a most uncomfortable position as animosity between Washington and Moscow reaches levels not seen since the Cold War. Beijing would desperately like to stay out of the diplomatic fray, but that is a difficult stance to maintain, given the important political, economic, and strategic relations that China has with both sides.

After many months of taking increasingly bold actions at the expense of its neighbors in East Asia, there are recent indications that Beijing may be adopting more conciliatory policies. China has unexpectedly removed a controversial oil-drilling rig that it had deployed in waters near Vietnam. In late June, Chinese president Xi Jinping conducted a high-profile summit meeting with South Korean president Park Geun-hye, seeking to improve relations with that country following last year's tensions over Beijing's proclamation of a new air-defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea. Even the tone of China's boilerplate warnings to the United States to stay out of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea has become somewhat more muted. Instead of shrill accusations of U.S. meddling, Chinese officials now urge Washington to be "fair" in its assessment of the issues at stake.