Paranoia-driven US politicians' hotheaded China rhetoric risks derailing ties with Beijing: China Daily editorial

The call Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley made in an interview to "lower the rhetoric" on China in the United States was a rare appeal to reason in Washington.

However, those viewing it as palliative care for bilateral relations should not ignore Milley's urging that the US send arms to Taiwan as quickly as possible to beat Beijing to any punch.

Fed up with war-with-China-is-imminent fever infecting lawmakers in the country, to whom Milley must have answered loads of China-related questions that must seem childish to a senior defense professional such as him, what he was advocating was just the rationalizing of the US' defense policy to make it more effective when it comes to applying pressure to China's "soft spots", rather than any easing of the Joe Biden administration's China policy.

Nonetheless, Milley appears aware that after the country has been grabbed by the enemy-is-at-the-gate alarm-ringing of the China hawks for so long, especially after the recent sensationalizing of the so-called spy balloon, that the US bow has been drawn to such an extent that it has eliminated the possibility for any realistic discussions on China-related issues. He should not be the only one in the core decision-making circle in Washington who believes that "some steely-eyed, cold-eyed realism" is needed, rather than hot-headed grandstanding.

Put aside the hostility toward China that Milley seems to have, his call for realism suggests that at least some in Washington now realize the dangers of vote-hungry hopefuls running off at the mouth.

But those with a clearer eye in Washington should also discard the illusion that as long as the US "remains really, really strong, relative to China" it can persuade Beijing to abandon the mission of reunifying Taiwan with the motherland.

The demonstrations staged by some US citizens in front of the hotel in New York where Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen is staying during her ongoing "stopover" in the US, and the protesters urging that the US government realize China is not the US' enemy and Tsai is using the US for her "pro-independence" cause, should be a wake-up call to those strategists such as Milley who are urging the Biden administration to supply the island with more weapons that doing so does not align with US interests.

What the protesters are aware of, which seems beyond the comprehension of many in Washington, is that in providing arms to the island, the US is not creating a losses-greater-than-the-gain deterrent to the use of force by Beijing, should the actions of Tsai precipitate it, as they seem to think. Instead, they are consolidating the false impression that a military conflict is unavoidable, which will usher China and the US into an even more dangerous future.

China has made it unequivocally clear that reunification will be realized whatever the cost, but also it prefers to pursue peaceful national reunification.