China Lays Into 'Bush Doctrine' Ahead of U.S. Poll

On the eve of the U.S. election, China laid into what it called the "Bush doctrine," said the Iraq war has destroyed the global anti-terror coalition and blamed arrogance for the problems dogging the United States worldwide.

The searing article was as close to a position on the U.S. presidential election as China has come, but it made no mention of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic Party's challenger to President Bush in Tuesday's presidential contest.

The United States was dreaming if it thought the 21st century was the American century, wrote Qian Qichen, one of the main architects of China's foreign policy, in a commentary in the English-language China Daily newspaper.

"The current U.S. predicament in Iraq serves as another example that when a country's superiority psychology inflates beyond its real capability, a lot of trouble can be caused," Qian wrote.

"But the troubles and disasters the United States has met do not stem from the threats by others, but from its own cocksureness and arrogance."

Qian is a former foreign minister credited with breaking China out of diplomatic isolation after the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The invasion of Iraq "has made the United States even more unpopular in the international community than its war in Vietnam," he said.

"The Iraq war has also destroyed the hard-won global anti-terror coalition," Qian added, saying it had caused a rise in terrorist activity around the globe and widened a rift between the United States and Europe.

"END OF EMPIRE"

The U.S. strategy of pre-emptive strikes would bring insecurity and ultimately the demise of the "American empire," Qian said.

Analysts have said China has a slight preference for the incumbent in the U.S. election, realising that U.S. policy toward China has changed little from administration to administration.

But China, growing in economic and political influence on the world stage, has expressed its aversion to Bush's unilateralist tendencies and sided with France and Germany in opposition to the Iraq war.

"It is now time to give up the illusion that Europeans and Americans are living in the same world, as some Europeans would like to believe," Qian said.

The United States had not changed its Cold War mentality, Qian said.

"The 21st century is not the 'American century'. That does not mean that the United States does not want the dream. Rather it is incapable of realizing the goal," he said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the "Bush doctrine" created "axes of evil" and pre-emptive strategies.

"It linked counter-terrorism and the prevention of proliferation of so-called rogue states and failed states ... It all testifies that Washington's anti-terror campaign has already gone beyond the scope of self-defense."


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