Vietnam’s President Triet on Human Rights: “Evasion”

By Foster Klug, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The first visit of a Vietnamese president to the White House since the Vietnam War comes amid harsh criticism by U.S. lawmakers of the communist-led nation’s human rights record.

President Bush has tried to make human rights a central part of his Asia policy. Republican lawmakers are urging Bush to press President Nguyen Minh Triet on Friday to make stronger efforts to stop what they describe as widespread abuse of Vietnam’s citizens.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., center, welcomes Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet, left, as House Minority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., is seen at right, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 21, 2007. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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Triet has attempted to keep the focus on vibrant trade ties between the United States and one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies. The countries began a bilateral trade agreement in 2001; trade reached nearly $10 billion last year.

Triet is leading a delegation of more than 100 Vietnamese businessmen. He signed with the United States on Thursday a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, which sometimes acts as a road map to eventual free trade negotiations.

But during an hour-long private meeting Thursday, senior U.S. lawmakers repeatedly took Triet to task for claims by rights groups that Vietnam has ramped up repression of political activists and religious leaders.

“Human rights was overwhelmingly the dominant issue,” Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., said. “We’ve got to see a stop to this conduct if this relationship is going to improve.”

When asked about Triet’s response, Royce answered: “Evasion.”

Vietnam tolerates no challenges to Communist one-party rule; it insists, however, that only lawbreakers are jailed. In recent months, Vietnam has arrested or sentenced at least eight pro-democracy activists, including a dissident Roman Catholic priest who was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 House Republican, said Triet told lawmakers that Vietnam “had lots of human rights, but the dissidents were somehow endangering the security of the country. We pressed hard for more information about exactly what that means.”

Triet, in a speech to business leaders before the congressional meeting, avoided any mention of human rights. He called for more U.S. business investment in his fast-growing country and said the government was working hard to smooth out difficulties that some U.S. companies have experienced.

“We will do our best to help you,” Triet told the audience. “We are striving to create a friendly business environment.”

Triet said talk of the war was outdated. “Vietnam is peace. Vietnam is friendship. Vietnam is developing dynamically and creatively,” he said through an interpreter.

Sherman Katz, a senior associate in international trade at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Vietnam has “got to be aware that part of the price of doing business with the United States, if you expect the U.S. government to help you, is to clean up some of these” human rights problems.

Triet: First Communist Vietnam President to Visit U.S.

Associated Press
June 17, 2007

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – Vietnam’s president is paying an official visit to the United States this week in another sign of increasingly close ties between the two countries and despite increasing concerns over Hanoi’s human rights record.

Nguyen Minh Triet (nwin min triht) will try to shift the focus from the Communist Party’s tight political grip to Hanoi’s growing embrace of market economics.

It’s the first official visit by a Vietnamese head of state since the end of the Vietnam War.

Triet arrives in New York tomorrow with a large delegation of Vietnamese businessmen. He plans to visit the New York Stock Exchange and witness the signing of various business deals.

The US and Vietnam are also expected to sign an agreement which could eventually pave the way for a free-trade deal.

Triet will also travel to Washington to meet with congressional leaders and President Bush.

Not Your Grandfather’s China

By Dan Bloom
Letter to the Editor
The Taipei Times
June 8, 2007

Friday, Jun 08, 2007, Page 8

To the American people and the US Congress:

It’s time to open your eyes regarding the basic agenda and very real threat posed by communist China — that country you love to put on an exotic pedestal festooned with technicolored tourist photos and pretty Chinese movie stars.

Let’s not mince words: China is a dictatorship ruled by an aggressive Communist Party that does not believe in human freedom, human dignity, morality or the pursuit of happiness.

Stop your love affair with communist China. Wake up and smell the Starbucks being roasted by Chinese chauvinists inside the Forbidden City tourist trap. China is out to squash the US and will use every means possible to attain this end. This is not your grandfather’s China. This is the Chinese Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China.

But it is a not a “republic” and it is not run by the people or for the people. It is the old Soviet Union in Chinese clothing.

China is not our friend, by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, Gong Li (鞏俐) is gorgeous, and Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) is slim and beautiful, but don’t get distracted by China’s Hollywood exports. Don’t be fooled by the 2008 Beijing Olympics “show.” China’s leaders, like the leaders of the former Soviet Union, are bent on world domination. Fly too close to Hainan and they’ll threaten to shoot your planes down.

No amount of friendly smiles and warm handshakes will change their agenda. It is not a free, democratic country and never will be, at least not as it is currently set up.

Did someone say pet food? Did someone say toothpaste? Do you remember who dumped dangerous chemicals into a Chinese river and didn’t alert residents living downstream? Who burns coal in coal-fired power plants as if there were no tomorrow? Does the term “acid rain” ring a bell?

China is a country that covers up SARS and bird flu. Global warming? China’s leaders never heard of that Western concept.

God? There is no God for China. China is one of the most godless nations on Earth. So why is the US sucking up to China?

This China you so love to do business with is dangerous. This China needs to be confronted.

Wake up, America. China is polluting the world, and not only with carbon dioxide emissions and other atmospheric pollution.

If you hated the old Soviet Union, you should hate the current People’s Republic. Different clothing, same evil empire. There should be no compromise with this state.

China is a threat to the American and European way of life. Darfur? You know the drill.

Stop kissing the ground the Chinese government stands on. Tear down that Great Wall of lies and deception full of state-sanctioned cover-ups and fabrications.

The US needs a transparent and democratic China. And the Chinese people are up to it. But Americans seem to be turning a blind eye.

Vietnamese Americans: Conference Explores Needs of Seniors Haunted by Past

 By Delphine Schrank
The Washington Post
Sunday, May 27, 2007; Page C03

Thirty years ago, they were the faces of the fall of South Vietnam and the chaos that followed. Today, their tales form a narrative of indelible pain and suffering, but also of resilience in the midst of darkness.

A spy, a judge and diplomat, a soldier and an air force commander were among hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who clawed their way out of their country after the Communist North overran Saigon on April 30, 1975.

Last week, the four joined nearly 300 people at George Mason University in Fairfax for the first conference of its kind for Vietnamese trauma survivors nationwide, according to Boat People SOS, a Falls Church-based advocacy group for Vietnamese immigrants.

Organized by Boat People and GMU’s Center for the Advancement of Public Health, the three-day conference aimed to sort through the problems survivors have faced as they attempted to rebuild their lives. It also encouraged service providers to explore solutions for the group as its members age. Many of the survivors remain stymied by language barriers and psychological scars.

Nguyen Dinh Thang, executive director of Boat People, said the conference workshops, which addressed subjects such as peer support, nutrition and retirement benefits, helped the participants change their perceptions of themselves from victims to survivors.

“Vietnamese are traditionally very quiet and withdrawn, but at this conference, they were very active and lively,” Thang said. Many trauma survivors are in denial, he added, so the conference provided an opportunity to call attention to their stories.

Sharing the burden of their memories seemed to bring catharsis — and some were frustrated by the time constraints. The former judge and diplomat, Quyen Cao Nguyen, now 76 and living in Gaithersburg, said he had stayed up all night to prepare an hour-long presentation that had to be cut to five minutes for a workshop.

Quyen Nguyen (none of the Nguyens is related) described enduring North Vietnam’s jungle gulag for 11 years, two of them in a cell no taller or wider than his outstretched arms, his wrists and ankles shackled.

His voice grew intense as he told of five newborn mice — still red from the womb — that he watched a fellow inmate cram into his mouth. Many of his friends committed suicide in the camps, he said, and he still has nightmares.

“It’s so important for us to make known the atrocities we endured and the dangers we encountered,” he said.

Between sessions, the former judge traded stories with the former spy, Hiep P. Nguyen, now 68 and living in Houston.

In May 1975, Hiep Nguyen recalled, he watched his wife and children leave on a U.S.-bound merchant ship crammed with refugees; he had been kept off the vessel. Weeks later, he made his escape, crawling up some cargo netting to find a place on another vessel.

His eyes glistened as he recalled looking at the stars, falling to his knees and casting into the sea the cyanide capsule that he had on hand in case of capture. He was reunited with his family during a stopover on Guam.

Between traditional dances and flute music at a banquet Thursday night, former Air Force commander Chin Van Nguyen, now 70, recounted how he bled and sweated for 13 years in 16 hard-labor camps, managing with two meager bowls of rice a day — if he was lucky.

Then there was Quy Le Lai, 78, the soldier, who fled with dozens aboard a skiff meant for six persons. It tossed on the high seas for seven days through tempests and Thai pirate attacks before coughing its 49 starving passengers onto Malaysia‘s coast.

After 1975, about 800,000 boat people braved the seas, the weather and pirates, landing throughout East Asia. More than half ended up in America.

Others settled in the United States under a State Department program. A first wave arrived between 1980 and 1994. Under a new bilateral agreement, thousands of other former U.S. allies who still face discrimination and hostility in their homeland have until 2008, advocates and State Department officials say. The number of eligible Vietnamese is estimated to be 8,000, Thang said.

But this weekend, nostalgia, not policy, sat heavily. In a session Friday morning to explore the needs of survivors, Lai raised a sympathetic laugh with a poem he composed for the occasion.

“How can one describe the melancholy of living in a strange land in old age,” he read, in Vietnamese. “. . . Time just flies beyond contemplation/Just keep your spirit high to enjoy life.”

Legendary Gurkhas threatened by Nepal communists

KATHMANDU (AFP) – Maoist activists in Nepal called for an end to the recruitment by Britain and India of Nepali youth for their legendary Gurkha regiments.

Retired Gurkha soldiers in London. Maoist activists in Nepal called for an end to the recruitment of Nepali youths for Britain and India’s legendary Gurkha regiments, prompting concern from Britain and Gurkha veterans.(AFP/File/Shaun Curry)

The Young Communist League, a branch of the country’s powerful Maoist former rebels, also vowed to pile pressure on the Himalayan nation’s government to bring about an end to the nearly two century-old practice.

“It drains the country of capable young people,” Ganesh Man Pun, the head of the Young Communist League told AFP at the end of a three-day high-level policy meeting.

“Recruting Nepali youths into the Gurkhas should be stopped as soon as possible,” he said.

Famed for their loyalty, discipline and courage in battle, Nepali Gurkhas have been recruited into the British Army since 1817. Competition is fierce and last year more than 15,000 people tried out for 230 places.

The British Army currently has around 3,400 Gurkhas serving in countries including Iraq and Afghanistan, while the Indian Army also has some 40,000 in its ranks.Tens of thousands of family members depend entirely on Gurkha salaries and pensions, providing income that would be otherwise unobtainable in the largely agricultural, impoverished country.

The Maoists, however, said prospective Gurkha fighters should instead be given opportunities at home.

“The government should provide alternative employment opportunities, as thousands of unemployed have already migrated due to the lack of opportunities here,” the Maoist youth leader said.

The Maoist youth wing was formed in the wake of the rebel’s peace deal with the central government in November 2006, which saw the leftist guerillas vow to end their 10-year-old insurgency and enter mainstream politics.

It has emerged as a powerful force with a claimed 375,000 members and is involved in activities including directing traffic, planting trees and helping the police. Critics have accused the group of acting like vigilantes.

Related:
Nepal’s Gurkha soldiers seek justice from Britain

Vietnam Votes for New Communist Legislature

Angola Press
May 22, 2007

Vietnam has been voting for new members to the National Assembly in an election unlikely to have much effect on the Communist government`s policies.

The vast majority of the candidates are Communist Party members and the rest have been screened by the authorities.

The Communists are the only organised party taking part in the elections.

Although the Communists hold true power, our correspondent says the assembly has shown some independence in investigating laws and ministers.

More than 500 new deputies were being chosen from a field of almost 900 candidates, only 150 of whom were not ruling party members.

Communist Party head Nong Duc Manh voted early. It is compulsory for the 50m-strong electorate to cast their ballots.

The 50m-strong electorate is obliged to turn out The legislative assembly has made a priority of cracking down on corruption.

Its members have aggressively questioned government ministers and have scrutinised draft legislation prepared by government agencies.

The BBC`s Bill Hayton says political reform in Vietnam, though slow, is likely to continue as long as it does not challenge the Communist Party.

Streets in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, were decked with campaign banners reminding the electorate of their duty to vote and exhorting them to pick candidates on the basis of their ethical qualities.

Results are expected to be announced in about 10 days` time.

Nepal: U.S. Issues Travel Warning; Human Rights Watch Weighs In On Its Own

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The State Department has warned US citizens against travel to Nepal, saying that the Maoist Communist Party remains a danger despite having recently joined the Kathmandu government.

“The Department of State remains concerned about the security situation in Nepal and continues to urge American citizens contemplating a visit to Nepal to obtain updated security information before they travel,” the government said in a statement.

“Despite the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement by the government and Maoist insurgents and their entry into an interim government, Maoists continue to engage in violence, extortion, and abductions. Maoists freely roam the countryside and cities, sometimes openly bearing their weapons,” it said.

“Given the nature, intensity and unpredictability of disturbances, American citizens are urged to exercise special caution during times when demonstrations are announced, avoid areas where demonstrations are occurring or crowds are forming, avoid road travel and maintain a low profile,” the statement said.

The statement reiterated that the US still considers the Communist Party of Nepal a terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch called on the Maoist rebels to release all child soldiers from their fighting forces.

“These children should be released immediately so they can enter rehabilitation programs, get back into school and rejoin their families,” said Jo Becker, children’s advocate at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch urged Nepal’s new Minister of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma, to secure the Maoists’ cooperation with the United Nations and child protection agencies to allow children to return home without further delay. Bishwakarma is also a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist.

The New York-based human rights watchdog said of more than 30,000 Maoist cadres registered in the cantonment sites created under Nepal’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, an estimated 6,000 to 9,000 are believed to be children under the age of 18.

“There’s no excuse for letting children languish in cantonment sites month after month,” Becker said.

Communist China and Vietnam: Running the Same Dishonest Human Rights Playbook

By John E. Carey

Peace and Freedom
May 6, 2007

Media watchers and human rights advocates often express bemused frustration at the way Communist China, Communist Vietnam and the United States conduct international relations. Before each and every big summit or meeting of heads of state, each of these nations reach for a time-worn playbook.

China and Vietnam typically release some dissidents, offer news reports about freedom of religion and tell their media to be more free and open. This is a kind of appeasement to the U.S. and the many international Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) like Amnesty International that monitor and publicize activities outside the international norms.

The U.S. often responds to these overtures with talk of reconciliation, the progress being made in China and Vietnam on freedom and human rights, and the hope of all Americans for a new tomorrow.Sometimes the U.S. even offers some incentives, concessions and inducements. These are typically accepted with much gratitude, pomp and ceremony.

As soon as the summit ends and the Communists get what they wanted, the door on human rights in the Communist world slams shut so fast it almost catches Uncle Sam’s red, white and blue coat.

Last July, we at Peace and Freedom began to monitor every international news report that mentioned the word “Vietnam.” We did this because Vietnam was holding many political prisoners without charge. One prisoner in particular came to our attention. Mrs. Cuc Foshee, an American citizen since 1970, had returned to the land of her birth, Vietnam, to visit relatives. She was arrested by the Communist government and held without charges, trial, or access to a lawyer.

Many other NGOs were developing detailed lists of human rights abuses and other irregularities inside Communist Vietnam. But the results of our international media review of Vietnam that started in July 2006 offered great insight into the workings of the word.

From the state controlled media inside Vietnam, all the news was rosey. Freedom of speech and religion were on the rise, dissidents were set free, the economy was booming, the shrimp were bigger than ever and they even jumped into fishing boats when called.

The free media in the rest of the world could not always see though the smoke and mirrors offered by Communist Vietnam but the NGOs and human rights groups were able to balance the outrageous lies from Vietnam with some factual and frightening stories.

The interest in Vietnam’s human rights record and activities grew in intensity as the year progressed because President George W. Bush had indicated his intention to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in November 2006.

The thought of the President of the United States visiting Hanoi offered the photo opportunity of the decade for Communist Vietnam. The Communists were hoping for something of a Victory Lap to celebrate Vietnam’s progress since Saigon fell to the Communists in 1975.

Vietnam was also seeking some very real goodies. Entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Permanent Normal Trade Relations from the U.S. would add fuel to an already burning Vietnamese economy almost ablaze with new investments and opportunities.

The Vietnamese Communists made several concessions and pronouncements of good behavior in the run-up to the APEC conference. Thankfully, Mrs. Foshee and others were set free and came home after years or months in prison.

And in November, Vietnam began to reap every gift imaginable. The photo opportunity of President Bush in Hanoi before a regal looking bust of Ho Chi Minh appeared on page one of every major newspaper in the world. Vietnam got WTO and in a few months PNTR. The “trifecta” was achieved.

After November 2006, Vietnam started the largest and most severe repression of human rights in recent memory.

Next month, the President from Vietnam will visit the United States for the first time. Human rights activists are already wondering if the usual play book will be used by both sides or if the U.S. will actually press Vietnam on human rights, as promised. The world awaits the outcome.

Now we look to China.

Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Summer Games by the International Olympic Committee. As part of the deal, China agreed to make progress in several human rights areas.

Now, NGOs and human rights organizations are already saying that China is falling short of its commitments on human rights.

Even though there is virtually no chance of human rights issues impacting China’s Summer Games, China’s international media charm offensive is in high gear.

We have seen China responding by hopping like a bunny to all kinds of criticism from around the world. China has announced new, more liberal rules for the media. China has made all kinds of pledges from stiffer self imposed environmental and global warming goals to renewed actions on freedom of religion.

China even replaced the Foreign Minister, who did not speak English, with the former Ambassadore to the United States who speaks English like a Princeton man.

China is making some real improvements in human rights and other areas of international interest, but there is much work yet to do for a China desiring acceptance by the law abiding world community.

The issues for China are great and some seemingly small.

When President Hu Jintao Visited Sudan last February, his presence violated the sanction of the U.N., the E.U. and others wanting to seal the Sudan from aid or trade until improvements in the situation that many have called genocide in Darfur could be assessed.

During President Hu’s visit to Sudan he offered economic aid and more investment in Sudan’s oil industry. Darfur was not mentioned publicly at all.

The United States has complained to China for decades that many in China violate international laws and standards on intellectual property rights such as copyrights and trademarks by producing “knock offs” of everything from Rolex watches to major motion pictures like the blockbuster “Titanic.”

These violation cost business and owners in the west tens of billions of dollars a year.

But the copyright infringement discussion pales in importance to China’s vast array of human rights abuses.

As we get closer to the Olympics next summer, one can expect some saintly behavior and some angelic pronouncements from China. But after the last gold medal is awarded we caution everyone against saying anything negative about their communist Chinese Olympic hosts.

We doubt that there will really be a new playbook.
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In response to this article we heard from a man who went though Communist Vietnam’s “re-education system” after Saigon fell in 1975. He spent 12 years in “re-education” and admitted maybe he was a slow learner.

He wanted to tell us that two months before a scheduled visit to his camp by Human Rights Watch, the Communist government prepared the camp and those under “re-education” with the greatest intensity.

Visit our Flagship at:
http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

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Chinese Culture: Less Respect for Human Life

 Vietnam: Getting Away With Murder (Human Rights Record is Abysmal)

China reviews ‘re-education’ law

Human Rights Issues In Asia: Red Alert

Vietnam trials send zero-tolerance message: analysts

By Grant McCool Sat May 5, 9:35 PM ET

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam’s Communist rulers want to send a zero-tolerance message to advocates of a multiparty system by putting several political activists on trial this week, analysts and diplomats say.
They note the trials come as the ruling party prepares for elections on May 20 of 500 delegates to the National Assembly, which has been a driver of economic and legal reforms.

The Communist Party of Vietnam is the only legal political party in the country of 84 million people and the defendants face criminal charges for forming political groups and anti-government propaganda.

“The security authorities have moved to prevent any activity that would detract from these elections,” said Carl Thayer of the University of New South Wales in Canberra.

Longtime Vietnam-watcher Thayer said that despite “measurable improvement” for tolerance of political criticism, there were “three no’s — no political pluralism, no multiparty system and no political opposition.”

A Hanoi government spokesman rejected accusations by Western human rights groups of a crackdown on dissidents this year and said the six people in the dock at three separate trials on May 10, May 11 and May 15 have broken the law.

Two lawyers — part of a new generation of largely Internet-based activists with supporters overseas — have been cited by prosecutors for possessing documents “intended to incite acts of sabotage of the upcoming National Assembly election.”

The United States and several European countries have called for the release of lawyers Nguyen Van Dai, 38, Le Thi Cong Nhan, 28, and others.

Dai founded the outlawed Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam and Nhan is a spokeswoman for the outlawed Progressive Party.

They were arrested on March 6 and go on trial in Hanoi People’s Court on Friday on charges of “spreading propaganda against the State of Vietnam,” a criminal offence under article 88 of the penal code.

PEACEFUL EXPRESSION

U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine says Vietnam’s laws should be changed “so that the peaceful expression of one’s view(s), even if they are critical to the state, is no longer illegal.”

Two other trials are scheduled, but in Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court, on Thursday and on May 15 with a total of four defendants facing charges similar to the lawyers’.

“Clearly there is a message in all of this for would-be protesters,” says Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic Studies think-tank.

“It remains to be seen how harsh the punishment will be. That will make the message clearer.”

In March, outspoken Catholic priest Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was jailed along with four others after a four-and-a-half hour trial in the central city of Hue.

Ly and some of the other defendants facing trial this month are members of “Bloc 8406,” named after the April 8, 2006 date it revealed itself with a “Manifesto for Freedom and Democracy.”

Diplomats and analysts describe the bloc as the closest Vietnam comes to having a dissident movement because it is nationwide and has attracted professionals, teachers and lawyers.

Amnesty International and other groups have recorded more than 20 arrests since November, when Hanoi hosted an Asia-Pacific summit, won approval to join the World Trade Organisation and was removed from a U.S. religious rights blacklist.

Farm worker organisers, lawyers, writers and religious people are among those detained.

Hanoi rejects accusations it cynically cracked down on the tiny dissident community after winning international praise and recognition last year.

“No one in Vietnam is arrested due to their political views or religion; only those who violate our country’s laws, and in turn we process them in line with our laws,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Dung said in a statement.

Vietnam’s average annual per capita income is about $720, although years of economic reforms by the Communist government have improved the standard of living for many.

U.S. military buildup urged to counter China

By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
April 11, 2007

The United States should build up military forces in Asia to counter China’s military expansion, according to a report on U.S.-China relations by a blue-ribbon panel.

“The United States should sustain and selectively enhance its force posture in East Asia, ensuring it has capabilities commensurate with the region’s growing importance to the U.S. economy and other vital national interests,” the report by a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations stated.

The task force, whose report was made public yesterday, was led by retired Pacific Command chief Adm. Dennis Blair and former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills.

“We believe that the United States should maintain the air, maritime and space superiority that we have in the Western Pacific that’s been the basis of a lot of Western Pacific/East Asian development ever since the end of the Second World War. And we need to maintain that position,” Adm. Blair said.

The report stated that upgrades to the U.S. military base on the Pacific island of Guam should continue and that the U.S. military should “invest broadly” in next-generation technologies that are appropriate for the Pacific, such as advanced naval and air forces.

The Pentagon also should consider “shifting the balance of its naval forces toward the Pacific from the Atlantic,” the report stated.”

The maritime interests of the United States in the future are increasingly in the Asia-Pacific region, and the stationing of its naval forces should be aligned with this trend,” it stated.The buildup and shift of forces to the Pacific is part of what the Pentagon calls its “hedge” strategy of being ready to defeat China swiftly in any military conflict.

The report also stated that the United States needs to improve its intelligence-gathering and analysis of the Chinese military, including training more intelligence specialists with Chinese language skills.

The task force disagrees with part of the Pentagon’s four-year strategy, stating that it does not think China will become a “peer competitor” of the U.S. military in the near future.

“We don’t see it becoming a peer competitor, but we think the United States needs to maintain its capability that it’s had,” Adm. Blair said.

Richard Fisher, a specialist on China’s military, said he disagrees strongly with that assessment.

“By 2010, most of China’s anti-access forces will be in place, making it very difficult to use Pacific forces to help Taiwan,” Mr. Fisher said.

“Unless we double the number of our aircraft carriers and triple our bomber fleet, China is going to be a peer competitor by 2030.”

The 30-member task force included former government officials, business specialists and academics, most of whom are known to favor conciliatory policies toward Beijing. They include former Defense Secretary Harold Brown, defense officials Ashton B. Carter and Charles Freeman, and former State Department officials Winston Lord, Wendy Sherman and Randy Schriver.

Arthur Waldron, a task force member and University of Pennsylvania professor, said the report accurately highlights the many problems and issues facing China at home and abroad but fails to recognize that they could lead to a rapid and spontaneous change that “is more risky and volatile than anything we have seen to date in China.”