LONDON -- U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick has a way with words. On a recent trip to Europe he tried to persuade European Union politicians not to lift the arms embargo that they had imposed on China after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. If the EU lifted the ban, he said, the Europeans would be painting bull's-eye targets on the back of U.S. soldiers' uniforms. (It was not clear why he said back rather than front.)
Zoellick also said, in Brussels on April 4, that "senior U.S. lawmakers would be quick to cut off burgeoning defense procurement cooperation between the United States and Europe, fearing that American weapons and technology could be used against U.S. soldiers in Asia, if EU countries start to sell arms to China."
Interesting. Zoellick obviously thinks a war between the United States and China is on the cards. He was recently appointed cochairman, by President George W. Bush, of a new high-level bilateral forum intended to hold regular "talks on a range of political, security and possibly economic issues," according to senior administration officials.