By WENDELL MINNICK
TAIPEI — In 1989, just months before the Tiananmen Square massacre, a US Army captain jumped with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) 43rd Airborne Division in Kaifeng, China.
The jump would be the last Larry Wortzel would enjoy with the PLA. As assistant Army attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, his next encounter with China’s airborne was at Tiananmen Square.
The “June 4th Incident” tore apart the dreams of many in Washington of a budding cooperative military relationship with the PLA.
Estrangement was further aggravated when the US sent two aircraft carrier groups to the waters off Taiwan during the 1996 Taiwan Missile Crisis. The appearance of the carrier groups embarrassed and enraged senior political and military leaders in Beijing.
The ups-and-downs of US-China military relations, the history of China’s military modernization effort, and Wortzel’s frustration with American academia’s continuing efforts to downplay China’s military capabilities as nothing more than a “nuisance,” are all illustrated in his new book, “The Dragon Extends its Reach: Chinese Military Power Goes Global.” Defense News was given an advanced copy of the manuscript prior to publication.
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