The Defense Department on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to sell upgraded Patriot missile equipment to Taiwan, a move that some experts said showed the cautious approach of the Obama administration as it enters its second year.

The contract was part of a package approved more than a year ago under former president George W. Bush. While the move is sure to upset China, the Obama team has yet to authorize fresh arms to the island claimed by Beijing.

Taiwan is not the only issue on the horizon. Obama is expected to meet as soon as next month with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who is widely respected in the United States but is vilified by Beijing.

Obama faced intense criticism at home in October when he declined to meet the Dalai Lama, the first time in nearly two decades that he has not met the president during a visit to Washington.

Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), believed that Obama has been cautious in his timing but not necessarily in his underlying policy.

"There really was a desire to try to get some trust and relationship building before we started to make decisions that might irritate the Chinese," Glaser said.

She said that Beijing would "yell and scream" about the Pentagon decision on arms to Taiwan, even though it was part of a previous package and the United States has previously sold Patriot missile equipment to Taiwan.

"They fear that if they don't, a soft response would be interpreted here (in Washington) as meaning that the Chinese are willing to tolerate US arms sales to Taiwan," she said.

US experts sense a sharper tone from China as its clout grows in the world, with the US economy wobbly and indebted to Beijing which holds more than 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds.

"Undeniably, the Chinese have an attitude about them now," said Victor Cha, who served as former president George W. Bush's top adviser on East Asia.

China made no known concessions to Obama when he paid his maiden visit in November. Unlike during previous visits by US leaders, China did not release any dissidents as goodwill gestures and did not nationally broadcast Obama's one public forum.

Some Western leaders also accused China of torpedoing efforts for a stronger agreement at last month's climate change summit in Copenhagen, although Beijing said that Premier Wen Jiabao played a "crucial" role.

But Cha, a scholar at CSIS and Georgetown University, doubted there was yet a paradign shift with China outpacing the United States.

"We always have to remember that China is big, flashy, rising, but still, American per capita income is 40,000 dollars and in China, it's still 3,000 dollars," Cha said.

John J. Tkacik Jr., a retired State Department official long concerned about China's rise, said the Obama administration was letting down Taiwanese, Tibetans and Uighurs, a Muslim minority embroiled in ethnic clashes last year.

He noted that the United States was legally obligated to ensure Taiwan's self-defense under the Taiwan Relations Act, approved by Congress in 1979 when Washington recognized Beijing as China's sole government.

"The hesitation of the United States to even execute its own laws on dealing with Taiwan because of a fear of China is a psychological milestone in China's rise to superpower status," Tkacik said.

"The United States is now dealing with a global superpower that unlike the Soviet Union is in a position to out-produce it, out-spend it and out-arm it over the next decade and we simply don't know what to do about it," he said.

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