BEIJING: The visit by a US president to China right in the beginning of the Year of the Horse should be seen as an auspicious sign for the country in the year ahead. Yet Beijing is not taking any chances with cosmology.

While China’s foreign office has been painstakingly trying to project George W. Bush’s visit to Beijing next week as one that would give the regime a boost of prestige, domestic agencies continue to dish out the usual nationalistic views that see America with suspicion and enmity.

Beijing hopes that Bush’s first official visit to China on Feb 21 would trumpet the ascendance of a new global power, closer to the ranks of the world’s major players.

As a continuation of talks held between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Bush during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shanghai in October, the visit is hoped to bolster the new momentum of friendliness in the US-China relations which began after Sept 11.

“The timing of the visit is not coincidental,” asserts professor Sun Ze from the American Affairs Research Centre of Fudan University in Shanghai. “Although its meaning is just to be felt and not to be said, I think the symbolism of it will provide for a successful visit.”

After the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, China’s foreign policy has been driven by a desire to sustain the newly-found common ground with Washington. Overtly, Beijing has backed the US-led war in Afghanistan and toned down its once-fiery criticism of Bush administration decision to abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia.

Not surprisingly, a series of recent US diplomatic initiatives which, just a few years ago would have threatened to derail the US-China summit, this time were met only with a restrained and measured attitude.

However suspicious of US military ambitions, Beijing reacted calmly at the Bush administration’s plan earlier this month to increase defence spending by the biggest amount since the Cold War.

A foreign ministry official expressed hope that Bush’s decision to boost defence spending by 12 per cent to $451 billion over the next five years, would further “development and peace” internationally.

In editorials and commentaries, many of China’s state-run newspapers reflected the usual resentment and reservations that used to colour China’s policy towards the US.

“Anti-terrorism has become a tool and a pretext for the United States to realise its national goals,” wrote Zhang Guoqing, a researcher at the American Affairs Institute under the Academy of Social Sciences in the popular ‘Southern Weekend’ this month.

“Under the banner of anti-terrorism, the United States can wantonly attack those who hold different views and can hang on to Afghanistan and other strategic places indefinitely. Under the same banner, it can make the United Nations a mere figurehead and transform the anti-terror campaign into a bargaining chip in bilateral relations.”

Professor Pang Zhongying said, “Fighting terrorism is a matter of a while and it can’t be compared with fighting against a super-power. The common ground for the development of the China-US relations has yet to be found.” —Dawn/InterPress Service.