Small Wars Journal

Defense Chief Ash Carter Postpones Visit to China

Fri, 04/08/2016 - 7:08pm

Defense Chief Ash Carter Postpones Visit to China by Gordon Lubold and Jeremy Page, Wall Street Journal

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has scrubbed a planned visit this month to Beijing amid rising tensions between the U.S. and China over the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Mr. Carter, who publicly accepted an invitation from Beijing in November, was to travel there during a trip to Asia this month.

But the government in Beijing was informed several weeks ago that Mr. Carter’s trip would not include a stop there, according to U.S. officials.

During the trip, Mr. Carter will visit the Philippines—one of China’s rival claimants in the South China Sea—to observe joint military exercises and finalize a deal allowing U.S. forces to be stationed there for the first time since 1992. He also will go to India, which has boosted defense ties with the U.S. in recent years, due largely to concerns about China…

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Comments

Madhu (not verified)

Tue, 04/12/2016 - 8:23am

Why at this late hour in his Presidency, does the Obama administration care so much about carping Washingtonian critics? Doesn't the success of the Trump and Sanders candidacies show that the American people are not that interested in the Washington Consensus anymore, that there are cracks in the wall?

Who cares what they think anymore? That's why so many within are panicking and closing ranks. It's not going ways, no matter who wins the election. The fundamental structural changes will go forward, slowly and painfully, but forward.