America offends China: Will China soon join the "Axis of Evil?"

The notorious report the Los Angeles Times about potential targets for an American nuclear strike is still getting comments from all over the world. China could not stay aside, of course. A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry claimed that China was deeply shocked with the contents of the article that was published in the Los Angeles Times; China asked America to explain. A Chinese diplomat stressed that the aspiration for peace, cooperation, and development had become a tendency. Any kind of thinking in the cold war spirit is contradictory to this tendency and is not grounded.

The paradox of the situation is the fact that George Bush was assuring the Chinese officials during his recent visit to Beijing that the USA was going to further develop cooperation with China. However, Beijing is likely to call those statements into question after the Pentagon’s report was exposed. Nevertheless, both China and the USA are interested in cooperation, but this cooperation has certain limits at the present moment. The USA still considers Taiwan its strategic partner. President Bush said during his visit to China that the USA considers China and Taiwan as a single whole, but he added that America was still acting as a security guarantee for Taiwan. So the statement is like an unambiguous warning for Beijing in case it is going to solve Taiwan issue in a military way.

The USA leadership still believes that China is a rather dangerous competitor for America, a competitor that possesses considerable nuclear reserves. Beijing is capable of challenging the USA in the future in the struggle for the world supremacy.

So far, China is still amending its nuclear arsenal, which, as the experts say, will soon reach a level that will allow it to easily cope with an anti-missile defense system on which the Americans are currently working.

It is worth mentioning that the reaction of the interested parties to the publication in the American press has been restrained until this moment. It is only about the demands for explanations from the American administration. However, the fact is that even America’s closest allies do not understand the intentions of the Pentagon.

Here is another question: why did the American administration put China and Russia very close to the line of those countries that are widely known as “axis of evil?” This is happening at the same time the USA continues to cliam that it has friendly relations with both Russia and China. The logic of such politics is inconceivable. Anyway, there can be a very simple explanation found to this: the American military department is not interested in the further reduction of the nuclear arms. Most likely, the number of the countries that possess nuclear weapons will increase in the nearest future. Will America extend its black list then?

Oleg Artyukov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov