U.S.
Is Seeing Positive Signs From Chinese |
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Help on Security Issues — Motives Murky | |
By MARK LANDLER and STEVEN LEE MYERS | |
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2012 | |
....WASHINGTON — When China suddenly began
cutting back its purchases of oil from Iran in the last month, officials
in the Obama administration were guardedly optimistic, seeing the move
as the latest in a string of encouraging signs from Beijing on sensitive
security issues like Syria and North Korea, as well as on politically
fraught economic issues like China’s exchange rate. |
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....As with so many signals from Beijing,
though, its underlying motives for reducing its imports of Iranian oil
remain a mystery: Are the Chinese embracing Western sanctions? Or, as
some experts suspect, are they trying to extract a better price from one
of their main suppliers of crude? |
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....The
answer is probably a bit of both, according to senior administration officials
who acknowledge that they do not know for certain. But for the White House,
which has labored to build a more constructive relationship with China,
Beijing’s motives may matter less than the general direction in which
it appears to be moving. |
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....For
years, China stymied efforts to pressure Iran. Now, in addition to throwing
its weight behind the sanctions effort, officials say, Beijing is also
playing a more active role in the recently revived nuclear talks between
Iran and six world powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain,
France and Germany. While in past negotiations, Beijing has followed in
lockstep the positions taken by Russia, this time Chinese diplomats are
offering their own proposals. |
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....“One of the key elements of making this
work is unity among the major powers,” said a senior administration official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic exchanges. “The
Chinese have been very good partners in this regard.” |
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....There are also signs of new cooperation
on Syria. Only weeks after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called
China’s veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution “despicable,”
China is supporting Kofi Annan’s peace plan for the strife-torn country
and is deploying monitors to help oversee it. Even on North Korea, which
China has long sheltered from tougher international action, the Chinese
government quickly signed on to a United Nations statement condemning
the North’s recent attempt to launch a satellite. |
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....And there is progress on the economic
front: American officials said China recently loosened trading on its
currency, the renminbi, which could help close a valuation gap with the
dollar that has stoked trade tensions between China and the United States
during an election year. |
|
....To some seasoned observers of China,
these developments are less a harbinger of a new era of cooperation between
Beijing and Washington than evidence that, at least for now, the interests
of the two countries coincide in some important areas. And these positive
signs come despite new American efforts to bolster its troop presence
and military alliances to counter China’s dominance in the region. |
|
....“Over time, there are interests that
overlap to some degree and differ to some degree,” said Jeffrey A. Bader,
a former China adviser to President Obama. “The relationship tends to
move up and down over time, as if along a sine curve. But the recent story
is mostly a positive one.” |
|
....With American and Chinese officials preparing
for high-level consultations in Beijing next week, the Obama administration
is accentuating these positive developments and playing down potential
sources of friction like the recent announcement that it would station
2,500 Marines in Australia and the talks it has begun with the Philippines
to conduct more joint military exercises and allow more frequent visits
by American warships, which both prompted public rebukes from China. |
|
....The
White House has also thrown a blanket of silence over the role an American
consulate played in briefly harboring a former associate of the deposed
Communist Party official Bo Xilai. |
|
....Speaking
at the Brookings Institution last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy F.
Geithner said, “The cumulative effect of what China has done is very significant
and very promising.” At the Naval Academy earlier in the month, Mrs. Clinton
declared, “Geopolitics today cannot afford to be a zero-sum game; a thriving
China is good for America and a thriving America is good for China.” |
|
....Mrs.
.Clinton’s .choice.
of .words. was.
noteworthy. .A.
new .appraisal.
of. the American-Chinese relationship by
Brookings concludes there is deep-seated distrust between the two countries.
Beijing, in particular, views the relationship as a “long-term zero-sum
game,” the report said. |
|
....American
officials are realistic about the limits to cooperation between China
and United States. Though China joined in the United Nations’ rebuke of
North Korea after its missile launching, President Hu Jintao later welcomed
a top official of the ruling Workers’ Party to Beijing, while another
senior Chinese official hailed the relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang
as a “precious gem.” |
|
....And
North Korea may carry out its vow to conduct a nuclear test. In the aftermath
of the failed satellite launching, North Korea staged a military parade
featuring a missile-launching vehicle that administration officials say
they think was sold to the North by a Chinese manufacturer. While the
United States does not believe the Chinese government willfully violated
a United Nations ban on military sales to Pyongyang, officials say the
sale demonstrates China’s inconsistent approach to enforcing it. “I don’t
think China is going to do anything to stop, or get to know, which companies
are involved in this,” said Victor Cha, who negotiated with North Korea
during the administration of President George W. Bush. “We should identify
a few of these companies, and sanction them.” |
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....China’s
calculations on Iran are just as complex. It is Iran’s biggest energy
customer, accounting for more than a fifth of its oil exports. But under
American sanctions law, it will be subject to punitive measures at the
end of June, unless it shows a “significant reduction” in its imports
from Iran or wins a waiver from Mr. Obama on national security grounds. |
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....The Chinese government wants to avoid those punitive measures, American officials and Western diplomats said. Given Iran’s isolation, analysts said China might also have concluded that it should diversify its sources of supply. And American officials said China shares the urgency of the United States and Europe in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. | |
....The Chinese, said Clifford Kupchan, the Middle East director for the Eurasia Group, a Washington consultancy, “have been bad actors” in the years of diplomacy over Iran, though in recent weeks “their diplomatic rhetoric is tougher and their oil purchases are lower,” he said. | |
....The question is whether China is simply waiting out Iran to extract a better price. With Japan and South Korea also cutting purchases to avoid American sanctions, Iran is being forced to stockpile oil in tankers anchored in the Persian Gulf. Unless it shuts down its oil wells, analysts say Iran will run out of storage capacity by summer. | |
....That is when China’s intentions will become clearer. By then, however, Mr. Obama will have had to make a critical decision on whether to exempt China from the new sanctions. | |
Comment: |
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The industrial base has spoken. | |
The newspaper's copy of the article, and the online version of it have different titles and in the latter's case no byline. The hard-copy was unkind to us by producing only a black and white copy of the Clinton photograph. | |
I'm not sure if the front-page editor or headline writer is illiterate. Or that Inspector Clouseau hasn't joined the Secretary's team: 'Motives murky, Kato.' | |
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article is available from: |
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