After more than seven years of waiting, there is reason to celebrate the final approval of a $6.4 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan. Unfortunately, there is less to this package than meets the eye. Rather than addressing Taipei's deteriorating military balance against China's rapidly modernizing and expanding forces, these approvals provide gasps of new oxygen to…

The word is sweeping Washington -- or at least the Taiwan-watchers in Washington (including those in the Chinese embassy) -- that the Bush Administration is continuing its "freeze" of eight major defense packages necessary to Taiwan's security. President Bush's failure to submit congressional notifications for the multibillion-dollar Taiwanese arms tranche raises the…

For over a decade, China's industrial and military strength has expanded with breathtaking speed. As one economist succinctly noted, China's economic growth "is losing its capacity to shock . . . however astonishing it would be elsewhere."[1] Despite China's signal disinterest in human rights (either for its own people or anywhere else), its equanimity toward nuclear…

Friday, August 8, was the holiest day in China's 2008 calendar. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush were in Beijing (along with 54 other heads of state and 15 prime ministers) to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. Russia also invaded Georgia that day. China shrugged off the Russian desecration of the sacred date,…

The blazing pageantry of the Beijing Olympics -- the most spectacular Olympian celebration in over 70 years -- is rightfully being heralded as the symbol of China' arrival as a global power. The bright Olympic spotlight showed the world a Chinese communist regime that is secure in its power, even if not in its legitimacy. While China cared deeply about the impression it…

For decades, China has been a stalwart ally of Robert Mugabe. This relationship began in the 1970s, when China armed Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) guerrillas against white rule in Southern Rhodesia.[1] Subsequently, it was no surprise when China and Russia vetoed a July 12 United Nations Security Council resolution to sanction Mugabe and key figures in…

Those who thought that the devastating Sichuan earthquake of May 12 brought out the best in the Chinese government should think again. Six weeks after the quake, it has become obvious that the local government's incompetence and venality was responsible for the collapse of schools while other buildings stood. But now that foreign reporters are covering the deaths…