Australian Prime Minister John Howard, on his seventh tour to the US since he assumed office in 1996, took the opportunity to assure nervous American policymakers that China and the US could live together in the Asia-Pacific region. Far from China being the force of darkness many in the Bush administration and in the broader neoconservative movement in America perceive it to be, Mr Howard last week told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations the world must adjust to the reality that China's rise is the defining phenomenon of our times. 'The international community must also acknowledge that China is determined to succeed and to reclaim its place in the global order,' Mr Howard told his audience. He also had some advice on how his US hosts might improve their relations with Beijing: build 'on shared interests and widening the circle of co-operation, while dealing openly and honestly on issues where we might disagree'. Mr Howard thinks that the US must lead any effort to resolve the tensions and conflicts that will inevitably arise in relation to North Korea and Taiwan. His message to the Americans seems to be that without constructive US engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, dark clouds will build. There is no doubt that Mr Howard means what he says, yet the Bush administration doesn't seem to be getting the message. This is despite the fact that he was last week accorded more hospitality than most other world leaders who visit Washington these days, including President Hu Jintao . While Mr Howard thinks it is in the US and Australia's short- and long-term interests to connect with Beijing, the Bush administration increasingly views China as a rival. The Pentagon's latest Quadrennial Defence Review contains this sabre-rattling passage. Of 'the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could, over time, offset traditional US military advantages [without] US counter-strategies'. Mr Howard's friend and ally, President George W. Bush, also went out of his way to praise Taiwan's commitment to democracy and freedom in a speech in Beijing last November. As John Tkacik, of Washington's Heritage Foundation think-tank, put it recently 'more likely, the Bush administration is near the end of its rope with China, which now looms as a new 'peer competitor' against which the United States will have to devise a new Western Pacific strategy'. So despite Mr Bush and Mr Howard holding hands last week and making it clear that they admired each other's resolve and perspicacity, on the one issue where it would be useful to have policy consensus between the two countries, their leaders hold divergent views. Mr Howard has signed a deal to sell uranium to China for peaceful purposes, despite widespread scepticism about whether the safeguards and verification regime built into the deal will ensure Australian uranium does not fall into military hands. Australia has assiduously avoided discussing what would happen if its US friends asked for its military assistance in the event of an attack by the mainland on Taiwan. But Mr Howard, who these days is plagued by talk about when he intends to retire from office, would dearly love to sign a free-trade agreement with China while he is still prime minister. President Bush and Mr Howard are joined at the hip when it comes to how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions, the war on terror and staying the course in Iraq. But on China, Mr Bush might find that his old buddy from Down Under isn't nearly as keen to rock the boat. Greg Barns is a political commentator in Australia and a former Australian government adviser
