The Periscope Post

China warned US President Barack Obama that meeting with exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama would threaten a cooperative relationship between the US and the growing economic super-power, Voice of America reported this morning.

It’s just the latest in a series of muscular posturing on both sides of the Pacific, as China flexes its new economic power and the US figures out what to about it. Over the last few months, China has worked to put the US in what it believes should be its place: Obama’s reception in China was slightly less than hospitable during his November goodwill trip; the country proved a massive roadblock to an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen; it stood against the US in its call for tougher Security Council sanctions on Iran; bit back at claims that its internet is less free than in other countries; and even chastised US diplomats for demanding that China investigate Google’s claim of Chinese cyber attacks, saying that a business issue shouldn’t become a diplomatic one.

Helen Cooper, writing in The New York Times on Sunday, claimed that the US is now starting to fight back. On Friday, the US authorized a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, a move that was met with swift condemnation from China and, Cooper wrote, “leveled a direct strike at the heart of the most sensitive diplomatic issue between the two countries since America affirmed the ‘one China’ policy in 1972.” That, on the same day that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton publicly scolded China for not taking a tougher position on Iran’s nuclear programme.

“While administration officials sounded a uniform public note, cautioning Beijing not to allow this latest tiff to damage overall relations, some administration officials suggested privately that the timing of the arms sales and the tougher language on Iran was calculated to send a message to Beijing to avoid assumptions that President Obama would be deferential to China over American security concerns and existing agreements,” she wrote.

The Telegraph today wrote that the arms deal signalled to China that Obama is “brazenly” defying Beijing’s power, after a year of taking a relatively “soft” approach to the country. The paper also added, however, that officials and experts “doubted that Obama was seeking to antagonise China.”

But it’s a situation that diplomats, world leaders, and, it goes without saying, newspapers, all over the world are eying warily. The Korea Herald wrote, in a recent editorial, that it was concerned that the rising tensions between the two countries may damage efforts to disarm North Korea. “We have to wait and see whether the current wrangling will develop into a serious confrontation on the global diplomatic and economic fronts or eventually fizzle out as in previous disputes regarding weapons sales to Taiwan under past U.S. administrations,” the paper opined. “But the intensity of the Chinese reaction in the latest dispute, reflecting Beijing’s awareness of its rapidly growing economic power and influence, could herald unprecedented complications, so there is worry about a possible effect on the six-way talks.”

But not everyone is as worried. The BBC’s world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, wrote today that the US proposed arms sale is pointedly below the level of armament that Taiwan would like – and that while Beijing must adopt a public attitude of righteous anger, in private, it should be “secretly pleased.”

“As the latest weapons systems fall within the defensive category, Chinese anger is moderated and to an extent, well-rehearsed and within bounds,” he wrote. “However, the red line has not been crossed. The broad conclusion must be, therefore, that this row is destabilising to a certain extent but not to the ultimate extent. The relationship, while not normal given the differences of system, is manageable.”