It’s not that Jiang, who just met Bush for the first time at the APEC meeting in Shanghai, is simply in a friendly mood. He wants America to mute its criticism of China’s crackdown on Muslim separatists in Xinjiang province. Jiang is also hoping that Bush, preoccupied with a new security agenda, will reconsider his missile-defense program. China is concerned about an established U.S. toehold in Central Asia, but, says a Western diplomat in Beijing: “If the Americans take out the Taliban and then leave, that will be OK.”
