As the Obama foreign policy continues to unravel, a new thread has been pulled. This time the unraveling area is Sino-American relations. While it seems hard to imagine, we have actually seen confrontation between Chinese and American planes in international airspace just the other day. We have America sending a second carrier battle group to the waters off China. We have the Chinese warning the USA to stop using flights near China to spy on them. In short, we have a major escalation of tension in a relationship that ought not to be confrontational.
How can it be that the American relationship with China could have deteriorated so much so fast? The answer is actually rather simple. The Chinese leadership have seen president Obama respond to other crises around the world. They understand that Obama's common response is delay followed by inaction or retreat. The Chinese also understand that in two years there will be a new American president who may not be such a pushover. That gives China a limited time period in which to make gains at America's expense. As a result, the Chinese have started to test the USA and, in particular, Obama. The last five years of relations with China were clearly insufficient to cement any sort of friendly ties. Obama (and Mrs. Clinton) get bad marks for that. It seems that no one in Washington really did anything to ingrain the idea of Chinese-American friendship into the relationship. For the Chinese, the relationship was based only upon coexistence, not friendship.
So we have yet another failure for the Obama foreign policy. This time, however, the stakes are much higher than they are even in the Middle East. China is one of the only countries in the world that can actually challenge America. It would be a disaster for all of humanity if the Sino-American relationship were to change into some sort of cold war or, worse yet, a shooting war. The future of mankind would be at stake.
In criminal law, there is a doctrine called "fruits of the poisonous tree"; it deals with what evidence is admissible if a defendant's rights have been violated. In international relations, we need to start a new category called "fruits of the Obama policy tree". It seems that all of those fruits are poisonous.
How can it be that the American relationship with China could have deteriorated so much so fast? The answer is actually rather simple. The Chinese leadership have seen president Obama respond to other crises around the world. They understand that Obama's common response is delay followed by inaction or retreat. The Chinese also understand that in two years there will be a new American president who may not be such a pushover. That gives China a limited time period in which to make gains at America's expense. As a result, the Chinese have started to test the USA and, in particular, Obama. The last five years of relations with China were clearly insufficient to cement any sort of friendly ties. Obama (and Mrs. Clinton) get bad marks for that. It seems that no one in Washington really did anything to ingrain the idea of Chinese-American friendship into the relationship. For the Chinese, the relationship was based only upon coexistence, not friendship.
So we have yet another failure for the Obama foreign policy. This time, however, the stakes are much higher than they are even in the Middle East. China is one of the only countries in the world that can actually challenge America. It would be a disaster for all of humanity if the Sino-American relationship were to change into some sort of cold war or, worse yet, a shooting war. The future of mankind would be at stake.
In criminal law, there is a doctrine called "fruits of the poisonous tree"; it deals with what evidence is admissible if a defendant's rights have been violated. In international relations, we need to start a new category called "fruits of the Obama policy tree". It seems that all of those fruits are poisonous.
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