Policy will poison relations

By any standard, the US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's China policy, as outlined on his official campaign website, is an outdated manifestation of a Cold War mentality.

It endorses the "China threat" theory and focuses on containing China's rise in the Asia-Pacific through bolstering the robust US military presence in the region.

And by stating that the US "should be coordinating with Taiwan to determine its military needs and supplying them with adequate aircraft and other military platforms", the Republican challenger has also gone so far as to provoke China over its sovereignty of the island.