China Confidential

China will continue to disappoint the United States and support its arch-enemy, Islamist Iran, in its nuclear standoff with the West. The Chinese-Iranian strategy of stalling for time by offering "serious negotiations" is working brilliantly. The two countries have effectively derailed the US drive for meaningful sanctions against Tehran by driving a wedge between Washington and its European allies. Western opinion is more divided than ever, even in the US, regarding Iran's intentions and capabilities, with appeasement advocates, led by former US President Jimmy Carter, challenging assertions that Iran is close to developing a nuclear bomb. Carter, who was fundamentally complicit in the 1979 Islamic fundamantalist overthrow of the pro-American Shah, is telling anyone who will listen that Iran is not really pursuing nuclear weapons and is instead simply seeking to use the issue to strengthen its legitimacy and prestige in the eyes of the international community. Across the Atlantic, French President Jacques Chirac is doing his part. Chirac told the BBC Monday that he is opposed to sanctions and supports dialogue to defuse the issue, referring to Iran as "a great country" ....

One country that has little doubt about Iran's intentions is Israel, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened to destroy. Many Israeli analysts are also increasingly concerned about China's alliance with Iran, which, in the wake of Israel's failure to defeat Iran's Lebanese Shiite proxy, Hezbollah, and America's failure to crush Iranian-backed Shiite militias and death squads in Iraq, is fast emerging as the most dominant--and dangerous--power in the Middle East. Israeli hardliners see a replay of the Cold War period in which Egypt, supported by the Soviet Union, posed an existential threat to the Jewish State. The difference, Israelis note, is that whereas Egypt was an economically weak Soviet client state, Iran is an oil-rich Chinese ally....

To keep the US off balance, China's Communist Party rulers are likely to increase tensions with self-ruled, democratic Taiwan. The pretext will probably be Taiwan's continuing campaign to join the United Nations. Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, has reiterated his intention to keep applying for UN membership following the island's 14th consecutive rejection by the world body, bowing to pressure from Beijing. Chen told a video news conference last week that Taiwan would apply as Taiwan, not Republic of China. Beijing is certain to cite such a move as a provocation; China's recently adopted "Anti-Secession Law" authorizes use of force against Taiwan, a de facto sovereign state actually recognized by 24 UN member-nations, if it moves to formally declare independence or if peaceful reunification efforts fail. For image reasons, China will try to muzzle its more outspoken generals, some of whom have in the past publicly threatened the US with nuclear war should it intervene in a cross-Strait conflict. One general talked about "nuclear dust clouds" over Los Angeles....