Dialogue with Ni Feng

• Source: Global Times
• [15:46 November 12 2009]
• Comments

Global Times: From the Asia perspective, what does the US’s putting more importance on China stand for? What influence it will bring to Asia? Will India/ Russia/ Japan/ South Korea/ Europe/ Australia adjust its foreign policy according to the development of the current Sino-US relationship? If so, what is the adjustment?

Ni: At present, Sino-US relations are the most important bilateral relations in East Asia. The development of Sino-US relations will decide the future of East Asian patterns. In this case, the US will be destined to pay more attention to maintain the evolution of the East Asian pattern within its controllable range. The changes in Sino-US relations will affect other Asian countries. On the one hand, they will have more emphasis on China and attach more significance on relations with China; on the other hand, some Asian countries like Japan and S. Korea may be more cautious on relations with China while being disappointed by their decreased priority to the US.

Global Times: Do you think Obama will stop selling weapons to Taiwan?

Ni: There will be a lot of difficulties if Barack Obama makes the decision to stop selling arms to Taiwan during his presidency. The US arms sale to Taiwan is based on the “Taiwan Relations Act” and this bill won’t be changed with a change of government. Besides, the military imbalance across the straits is always the excuse for the US to sell arms to Taiwan, which will not be changed during Obama’s presidency. However, Obama is likely to make some adjustments on selling arms to Taiwan according to the current situation, such as not approving arms sales this year or deferring sales.