Further hardening administration attitudes were the xenophobic Chinese government-instigated demonstrations and violence against Japan last spring and the September incident in which China's newest Russian-built destroyer locked its fire-control radar onto a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft--over Japanese-claimed waters. In 2004, the State Department had explicitly warned that "Article 5 of the [U.S.-Japan] Mutual Security Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands," the territory in question. China seemed to be probing how firm the U.S.-Japan alliance is.

All of these considerations point to a new consensus within the administration that, on the China-Taiwan issue at least, Washington should rebalance its policies back in Taiwan's direction.

It just so happened that the Pentagon also issued its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on February 3. A number of Pentagon China hands I spoke with that Friday evening pointed to QDR pages 29 and 30 and commented to me that it was the first time a QDR had ever mentioned a putative adversary nation by name. The passage reads as follows:

of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter strategies.

The QDR then spends an entire page describing how "the pace and scope of China's military build-up already puts regional military balances at risk." And to top it off, one China specialist at Defense pointed to the two photos that bracket the China pages--one depicting a submarine launch of a Tomahawk cruise missile, the other showing Japanese and American F-15 fighter pilots "discussing tactics . . . before a mission." A mischievous smile on my interlocutor's face prompted me to ask, "Was that intentional?" He grinned, "Intentional or not, that's how the Chinese will see it."

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ATTITUDES toward China are hardening in other ways. In early December, Deputy Secretary Zoellick concluded the latest semi-annual round of U.S.-China dialogue with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo--"one of the few Chinese diplomats comfortable with departing from a prepared script," according to one administration China hand. When the dialogue concluded, however, Zoellick reportedly was left with the impression that he had done all the talking and that Dai had only listened noncommittally.

Zoellick had been particularly concerned about China's support for African dictatorships and its complete blindness to the human misery they wreak. On January 12, Zoellick got his response--a slap in the face in the form of a Chinese foreign ministry "white paper" on Africa. On the matter of human rights, civil and political rights, and genocide, China's white paper was silent. It said instead that China "respects African countries' independent choice of the road of development and supports African countries' efforts to grow stronger through unity." In other words, what African dictators do to their own people is of no concern to Beijing.

Which made it all the more puzzling when Zoellick then went out of his way to stop in Beijing after consultations in Tokyo (and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland), and then travel on to the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu on January 25, for the sole purpose of getting a photograph of himself "hugging a panda"--for his wife, he told reporters. The resulting images of Zoellick clad in a sterile veterinary smock and gloves, cuddling a distinctly uncomfortable baby panda, could have been seen as evidence the Bush administration had gone a bit soft in the noggin' on China. Indeed, the initial reaction among Washington China-skeptics was horror.

We have since been reassured that Zoellick indeed has a special fondness for pandas derived from his service on a World Wildlife Fund advisory council, and that Mrs. Zoellick did indeed want such a photo. Zoellick also believed that his appearance with the panda would reassure the Chinese that he is still open to a "global dialogue"--provided the Chinese start to act like they're interested.

But more likely the Bush administration is near the end of its rope with China, which now looms as a new "peer competitor," against which the United States will have to devise a new Western Pacific strategy. Unless Beijing makes some significant contribution to world peace, nonproliferation, human rights, or--not to forget--its massive trade surplus with the United States by April, President Hu should not expect a warm welcome in Washington. And Deputy Secretary Zoellick is likely to chair the welcoming committee.

John J. Tkacik Jr., a retired State Department officer who served in Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.