Speaking the truth makes the Pacific a safer place.

• JUNE 6, 2010

Gates on China

Speaking the truth makes the Pacific a safer place.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a notable contribution to the free world's defense this weekend, and it didn't involve money, missiles or troops. He talked frankly about how China's military expansion threatens peace and security in the Pacific.

"The South China Sea is an area of growing concern," Mr. Gates told fellow defense officials Saturday at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The U.S. supports "stability, freedom of navigation, and free and unhindered economic development," and the Pentagon objects to "any effort to intimidate U.S. corporations or those of any nation engaged in legitimate economic activity."

This is a welcome rhetorical shift. The Obama Administration spent its first year in office bending over backward to please China on everything from human rights to Beijing's support for rogue regimes in North Korea and Burma. Meanwhile, the Chinese military has begun to push into other nations' territorial waters, from Japan to Vietnam, to the extent of harassing naval vessels. Chinese officials have begun calling the South China Sea a "core interest," implying sovereignty over international waters.

Mr. Gates's comments combined with tougher rhetoric from new Pacific Command chief Robert Willard, suggest the Pentagon thinks it's time to draw brighter lines around this kind of misbehavior. That will come as a relief to such U.S. treaty allies as Taiwan and Japan, which depend on the U.S. security umbrella to counter China's military buildup, and to every country that uses the South China Sea's busy shipping lanes.

It's also appropriate given that China has once again cut off lines of communication with the U.S. military—a policy Mr. Gates criticized Saturday. "Chinese officials have broken off interactions between our militaries, citing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan as the rationale," he said, adding the policy makes "little sense" and risks "miscommunication, misunderstanding and miscalculation."

Those risks were immediately obvious Saturday when a participant asked Mr. Gates why America considers the Chinese to be "enemies." The normally quiet Defense Secretary bristled "for the record that the United States does not consider China as an enemy but as a partner in many areas." The clearer the U.S. is in responding to Chinese military assertiveness, the less likely China will miscalculate and become an enemy.