Special to WorldTribune.com

Gordon S Chang, LIGNET.com

The Obama Administration’s focus on “engagement” has failed to deter an increasingly belligerent China, as Beijing’s top party leaders pay more attention to their increasingly powerful, but divided military.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry will be the latest American diplomat to try to talk China out of its aggressive behavior when he leads a delegation comprised of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and hundreds of American officials to Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday for the sixth annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. His predecessor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, sat through four annual dialogues and, in her memoirs “Hard Choices,” complained about the tedious talks, the “hours of presentations and discussions, asking questions and raising concerns.” …

This year’s dialogue, unfortunately, comes at a time of extremely provocative Chinese behavior.

Since the last session — in Washington in July of last year — China established its East China Sea-Air-Defense Identification Zone, which purports to control sovereign Japanese airspace, endangers commercial air traffic and impinges on accepted notions of freedom of navigation. China’s naval vessels continue efforts to seize the Second Thomas Shoal from Manila by preventing resupply of a contingent of Philippine marines. A Chinese ship almost caused a collision in the international waters of the South China Sea by crossing within yards off the bow of a U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser. One of China’s state oil companies planted a drilling rig close to Vietnam’s shore. China is fortifying contested reefs and islets with facilities for its military. There have been fresh Chinese incursions into Indian-controlled territory in Ladakh.

China’s actions have been so belligerent that the Obama administration may soon be forced to use the Navy to deter China and authorize the 7th Fleet to “send a message,” in the words of the Washington insider Nelson Report.

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