Elanso

Some helpful suggestions to China from the U.S. military:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a set of thinly veiled warnings to China on Saturday, cautioning that it could risk its share of further gains in Asia’s economic prosperity if it bullied its neighbors over natural resources in contested areas like the South China Sea.

This always goes over so well in Beijing (not). This may be a cheap shot, but this kind of talk would be a lot of more effective if Gates was not representing a country that had invaded and currently occupies a nation whose major claim to fame is its petroleum resources. I’m just saying . . .

This also probably did not go over too well with China’s realist foreign policy community:

Mr. Gates made clear that central to the Bush administration’s Asia policy is maintaining American military might and economic sway in the region.

Indeed, Mr. Gates’s first stop on his weeklong visit to Asia was to Guam, where he took a helicopter tour on Friday to review Pentagon plans to spend $15 billion over the next six years to upgrade and expand World War II-era installations to accommodate thousands of additional American troops, and to broaden training missions with regional partners like Japan.

No matter whose side you’re on, the U.S. position of "We’re on top, and we’ll stop anyone who threatens that position," is not really winning many friends these days.