Word: hawkishness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...talks with China's Vice Premier, Qian Qichen, he bluntly said Washington would sell whatever arms it chose to Taiwan, whether Beijing liked it or not. Bush and his advisers seemed downright eager to prove there's a new sheriff in town, ready to take a more hawkish, assertive posture on foreign policy. What's far less clear is whether the tough talk is simply a way to distance himself from Clinton, the posturing of an unsettled Administration that has yet to conform its rhetoric to its policies?or the harbinger of sharp confrontations to come...
...talks with China's Vice Premier, Qian Qichen, he bluntly said Washington would sell whatever arms it chose to Taiwan, whether Beijing liked it or not. Bush and his advisers seemed downright eager to prove there's a new sheriff in town, ready to take a more hawkish, assertive posture on foreign policy. What's far less clear is whether the tough talk is simply a way to distance himself from Clinton, the posturing of an unsettled Administration that has yet to conform its rhetoric to its policies--or the harbinger of sharp confrontations to come...
Still, both in its more aggressive response to U.S. patrols around its airspace and in its detention of the downed surveillance plane, China - or at least some hawkish elements in the Chinese leadership - appear set on playing hard ball. Although China's announcement Monday that it would grant the U.S. access to the detained personnel appeared to signal that there are limits as to how far Beijing wants to push President Bush into a crisis, the fact that Chinese sources reported that the plane had been boarded in defiance of the U.S. insistence that it is sovereign territory suggests...
...Even though the secretary of state dutifully fell in line the following day, the tenor of Bush's comments suggested that more hawkish elements in the administration may have been making their presence felt. After all, Bush could quite simply have done the "we wholeheartedly support South Korea's peace efforts and are studying ways to take it forward" routine - the diplomatic equivalent of "no comment" - instead of pointedly questioning the wisdom of negotiating with Pyongyang, which was a sharp slapdown to President Kim's "sunshine" policy of reconciliation with the North...
South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung may have picked a bad week to come to Washington. Having suffered some highly visible setbacks on Iraq policy, the more hawkish elements of the Bush administration weren't about to start sending flowers to their favorite global bogeyman, North Korea's President Kim Jong Il. And so, despite Secretary of State Colin Powell's suggestion the previous day that the new administration may consider pursuing a dialogue with North Korea begun by the Clinton administration, President Bush Wednesday bluntly rejected his South Korean visitor's suggestion that the U.S. quickly resume talks...