Lost in the debates about whether the European Union should lift its arms export embargo on China is a much broader and more pressing question: does the Bush administration once again see China as a strategic competitor, as it did in the early days of the Bush presidency, before the war on terror forced Bush to seek cooperation with China’s rulers? That Japan has joined the United States in standing alongside Taiwan in opposing an end to the EU’s arms embargo on China suggests that this is so.
在有关欧盟是否应当解除对华军售禁令的争论中，一个更为广泛更为迫切的问题被人们忽略了，即：布什政府是否再一次将中国定位成了一个战略竞争者？就如其在执政早期阶段、也就是布什迫于反恐战争压力转而寻求与中国领导人的合作之前一样？日本加入美国阵营、与台湾一起反对欧盟对华军售解禁之举则暗示着情况确实如此。