They know that Japan has the national unity, the technical proficiency, and the ferocity that their empire lacks. China s foremost foreign policy goal has been to use America to tranquilize Japan. Almost as important has been its objective of lifting America s military protection of Japan enough to cause Japan to feel the need to propitiate China, but not enough to alarm Japan. Over and above all this is the fact that America can do just about anything it wants militarily against China, while any Chinese military action overseas opposed by the US 7th Fleet would only demonstrate impotence. The list of China s capacities to impose costs on America is short.
China can sell missiles and nuclear technology to America s rogue state enemies.
But it has been doing so to the best of its ability despite commitments to the contrary. If it ceased brokering relations between the US and North Korea, or imposed economic sanctions against the US, it would hurt itself. If it were to keep American captives, or otherwise confront America, it would reduce the influence of its friends, paid and otherwise, throughout the world. For China s foreign policy, then, the Bush Administration s sufferance of the detention of an American crew is a far reaching triumph. True or not, they will say that Bush also made secret concessions at the expense of Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, etc.