U.S. Lawmakers to Focus on China.

With the presidential campaign heating up, "2008 promises to be a trying year" for U.S.-China ties, wrote Brad Glosserman and Bonnie Glaser, analysts with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. "There will be a temptation to make China a foreign policy issue or a scapegoat for problems in economic and security policy."

Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank, noted worry that congressional support for Taiwan's U.N. membership could encourage Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian to do something that China would see as a push for independence. Chen is trying to carve out a non-Chinese identity for the island. "Hopefully, they won't do too much," Cossa said of Congress, "because nothing makes things worse than congressional efforts to make them better."

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