What is the Pentagon's official view of China's military strategy? PINR also comment on the Defense Department's report. (Intelligence Brief: US-China Relations, http://www.pinr.com/).

>The report. . . was supposed to have been completed in March, but had been delayed because of conflicts within the Bush administration between the Defense Department [Pentagon] and State Department over its tone and judgments.Under the direction of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department has sought to move Washington's foreign policy away from the unilateralism favored by neo-conservatives to a traditional balance-of-power diplomacy that includes greater engagement with Beijing on issues of trade, North Korea's nuclear weapons program and security in East Asia. In contrast, under Donald Rumsfeld the Defense Department has remained wedded to the view the Beijing is Washington's "strategic rival."

So, the 1st round, Gen. Powell lost;
this round, Miss Rice won?
Or it's just a retraction for a further attack in the near future?

IJ, it seems like the prevailing view at the Pentagon and the DoD is that China has the potential to become a threat, if not to the US then to its neighbors, but it is not entirely clear yet that it should be perceived as such. I think a substantial portion, albeit a minority, of the intelligence community, do not hold the view that China is slowly building towards taking a more belligerent stance.

Lin, I may be wrong, but my perception of recent moves from the Department of State and from Condoleeza Rice seems to indicate that the White House intends to use more of American 'soft' power than was evident in the 1st Bush term. Iraq has exposed the limits of American conventional military might, and using influence-peddling to achieve American interests seems more on the front-burner these days.