Tuesday 17 May 2011

Sino American Relations

The website I found is a report by the Congress Research Service of The Library of Congress that discusses US-China relations and the implications for US foreign policy.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32804.pdf

It is from 2006 so is not the most up to date account of the situation between the two countries but does go into significant detail of China's economic/political expansion in the world and also internal affairs. It seems the most significant threat perceived by the US is not that China is aligning itself with Americas enemies or hostile countries but that they are insidiously trading more with allied nations. America is finding its grip on commodities threatened in countries where it previously was the dominating trade partner.

The two other main areas of concern are to do with China's secretive approach to its economy and military spending. Politicians and Department of Defence officials promulgate that China is massively understating its expenditure on the military and this is a cause for concern because put quite simply people want to 'know their enemy' and nobody likes surprises. In relation to their currency the US is disgruntled that China is underestimating it and therefore giving significant advantages in the world marketplace and within its own economy.

There are many other discussion areas in the report such as long standing disagreements over Taiwan and North Korea but what surprised me was what the level of significance attached to some things you would think would be higher. The main one being the fact that China is a one party communist state. Though it is not aggressively expanding or attempting to revolutionise other countries to be communist as Russia was during the cold war it is still a non democratic system. The US has championed itself as the leader of the 'free' and democratic world, even using it as a part excuse for military intervention in other countries before so the question has to be asked, why do they condone it so freely with China?

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