By Trefor Moss
As the Chen Guangcheng saga drags on in Beijing, this week’s visit to Washington of Gen. Liang Guanglie, China’s defense minister, risks being overshadowed – or at least that’s the angle that much of the coverage of Liang’s trip seems to be taking.
In fact, Liang is almost certainly more interested in the shadows cast by the round of defense diplomacy that took place in Washington immediately prior to his arrival: the so-called “2+2” summit between the Philippine defense and foreign secretaries and their American counterparts.
The visit of Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert Del Rosario had been scheduled long before last month’s maritime confrontation between Chinese and Philippine ships at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (a dispute that continues to rumble on, with some ominous statements being made at the diplomatic level). But the latest spat certainly gave their mission – to secure more defense support from the U.S. – an added sense of urgency.
Read the full story at The Diplomat