No More Coddling China, Russia

In a recent report, the Washington Times found these examples that Republican President-elect George W. Bush and former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who will be his vice president, are junking the policy of outgoing Democratic President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore that treated China and Russia as "strategic partners":

• Former four-star general Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Cheney was secretary of defense, made it clear that one reason he was accepting the post of secretary of state in the Bush-Cheney administration is this reversal of policy.

The Bush-Cheney position, Powell emphasized, will be to treat those two nuclear powers "not as potential enemies or adversaries, but not yet as strategic partners."

• During the presidential campaign, Bush said he would no longer regard China and Russia as astrategic partners, but more as "competitors."

• In a harsh speech last week, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1997, broke his silence on the Clinton-Gore lenient policy toward China.

He referred to China as a potential "21st century Soviet Union" aggressively modernizing its military and creating instability with contradictory economic policies and a dictatorial political structure.

He based that conclusion on recent Pentagon assessments warning that Beijing will emerge as a hostile military and economic power in the next 20 years.

• Bush is supporting the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, passed earlier this year by the House of Representatives, that seeks to reduce the growing instability in Asia created by the Clinton-Gore administration's tilt toward mollifying China.

Bush also favors a stronger national missile defense system than that proposed by the Clinton-Gore administration.

This is anathema to China, which views such a system as a threat to its strategic nuclear-missile arsenal.

• Anticipating a more-supportive White House under Bush and Cheney, Taiwan has already put on the table its request for missiles to defend itself against threatened attack by mainland China – a request denied by the Clinton-Gore administration as it sought to pacify Beijing through trade.