The US has, nevertheless, a great deal of reservation about China and her conduct on a number of issues as manifested from time to time. A string of recent pronouncements coming out of Washington indicate that Bush administration may be adopting a rather abrasive position with regard to China. The US unceremoniously attacked China for the huge wave of textile import that followed the lifting of global quota agreement at the beginning of the year. In retaliation the US has also imposed quotas on Chinese textiles, as has the EU.

The US treasury has demanded that China revalue the yuan within next six months and described her currency policy as 'highly distortionary'. Even if China revalues the yuan it will make precious little difference to the US' huge current account deficit. Earlier the US' Defence Secretary Donald Ramsfeld claimed, in a bullying mood, the Chinese military was much higher than officially admitted, questioned the motive behind the increased defence expenditure and called on Beijing to embrace 'a more representative government.' Sometimes back it had been reported that Pentagon was preparing to release a report that would warn the administration to take more seriously China's emergence as a strategic rival to the US.

Prior to 9/11 the incoming Bush administration had already adopted an aggressive stance towards China calling it a strategic competitor rather than 'strategic partner' -- a term preferred by Bill Clinton, his predecessor. But 9/11 seemed to have brought that to an abrupt end. Even then for a period the relationship remained mellow. The period has also come to an end. In retrospect, it would appear that the importance and urgency of anti-terror crusade was fake. They were never as stated, but only to use them as lever to begin the transformation of US' foreign policy -- one that we are witnessing now in a wave of neo-imperialism and colonialism. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda had never been serious threat to the US. Al-Qaeda could never pose a miniscule threat to the world's sole superpower. But China can and certainly will. That's where is the US' strategic stake.

China is a different matter altogether. Its growing economic power will, in course of time, fuel desire to politically and militarily assert her role. Since 9/11 apart from being circumspect and mostly cooperative with the west China has been extremely pro-active and sophisticated in the way it has gone about seeking to enhance her position in East Asia and South Asia and concluding a series of agreement notably with India, Indonesia and ASEAN -- all aimed at better ties. Its wider significance cannot be lost sight of.

Firstly, because this is China's backyard and her ability to establish its pivotal position there will be a crucial determinant of its capacity to become a global power. Secondly, East Asia, China's likely playground is destined to be the epicentre of global politics. Thirdly, the US also remains the dominant player in the region while China's influence grows -- that of the US diminishes. Howsoever no global power ever gives up power voluntarily. Having defeated the USSR in the cold war and now glorying in its status and power as sole superpower it will defend itself with ruthless determination. So, the looming conflict between an extant America and rising China will become a dominant faultline of global politics.

Yet on the one hand the relationship between the US and China represents perhaps the consistent expression of a bipartisan long-range American foreign policy. Starting with Richard Nixon seven US presidents have affirmed the cooperative relations with China and American commitment to a one China policy. Nevertheless the ambiguity in the US-China relationship has suddenly reemerged. Various officials and media are attacking China's policy from exchange rate to military build-up. The relationship is becoming hostage to reciprocal pinpricks -- the sign of impending cold war, if any.

The rise of China will, over the next few decades, bring about a substantial re-ordering of the international system. The international peace and security will substantially depend on how expeditiously the extant powers can adjust to those changes. China's emerging role is often compared to that of imperial Germany at the beginning of the last century -- the implication being that a strategic confrontation is inevitable and US had better prepare for it. That assumption is both wrong and dangerous. Only the reckless could make such calculation in a globalised world of nuclear weapons.

In the words of Henry Kissinger: the military imperialism is not the Chinese style. Clauswitz, the leading western strategic theoretician, addresses the preparation and conduct of a central battle. Suntzu, his Chinese counterpart, focuses on psychological weakening of the adversary. The second world war initiated by a rising Germany is irrelevant.

But a cold war between the US and China seems very much in the offing. China will be demonised for its political system and its profound cultural differences as, for the first time in modern history, a non-white, non-European based society will be a global superpower. The West will need to learn to live with difference rather than seeking to denounce and subjugate it. The US will need to contain its primordial desire to have an enemy, be it native Americans, the Soviet Union, Bin Laden or China. Only then the political tension that lies ahead can be tamed.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.