Editorial
U.S. policies pushing China, Russia closer

The Chinese do not believe officials in Washington when they say the United States is not trying to "contain" China, or that the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade was an accident, or that George W. Bush's rush to build a national missile defense isn't aimed at China.

The Russians don't believe officials in Washington when they say the national missile defense will have no effect whatever on Russia, or that the recruitment by NATO of all of Russia's former Eastern European satellites isn't intended to make the Russians feel nervous.

The Russians and the Chinese, in fact, had very little regard for each other from the days of Mao and Stalin until Washington began telling them all those things that they don't believe. (In fact, Washington's assumption that the two were allied when in fact they despised each other probably lengthened the Cold War considerably.)

The more Washington appears as a strategic threat to these two countries, the less mutual enmity they feel.

Indeed, it's gotten to the point where Russia and China have decided to boost their "strategic partnership" by signing a treaty of friendship and cooperation.

Both countries are being careful to stress that their aim is not to re-create the military alliance they paid lip-service to in the Cold War. They insist this new association is not directed against any country.

Yet officials on both sides acknowledge that they see the relationship as a counterweight to the United States' status as the world's only superpower.

But Russia now strongly supports the Chinese view that Taiwan must never be allowed to declare independence, and China backs up Russia in its criticism of NATO's eastward expansion.

Both countries oppose Bush's national missile defense and his apparent plan to pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

What should be plain from the behavior of China and Russia is that the current priorities of the Bush administration are certain to push those two countries ever closer. By our thinking, that's a greater long-range danger than anything to be gained by any of the policies — NATO expansion, arming Taiwan, national missile defense — Bush is insisting on.

We don't need China and Russia as enemies. And they needn't be, if we'd exercise a bit more patience and prudence.