Two new reports should help White House clarify its China policy

The Bush administration’s ambiguous China policy can be made clearer thanks to two new government reports that explain clearly how “constructive engagement” has only encouraged Beijing to build a military force that threatens US interests.

The Department of Defense’s annual report to Congress on China, released last week, concluded among other things that the PRC has made a major qualitative increase in its ICBM fleet whose nuclear warheads experts say are programmed to strike the American mainland.

Most startling is the report of the congressionally-mandated US-China Security Review Commission, which unanimously – save the lone dissent of a single commissioner who has major business interests with Chinese Communist Party leaders – confirmed that Beijing was indeed becoming a large-scale military threat. The report raised troubling conclusions about economic and financial relations with the People’s Republic.

Despite the needed focus on the “war on terrorism,” the Bush administration cannot afford to ignore, let alone misperceive, the dangers emanating from a China experiencing growing internal social and economic turmoil, disturbing demographic trends, and what may prove to be another messy communist leadership transition. The stakes are getting higher every day.

BREAKING: Some liberals on Capitol Hill are quietly maneuvering to make American military personnel liable to prosecution for “war crimes” before the International Criminal Court. Click here for details.