-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Halt arms sales to Taiwan, China urges US By Toby Harnden in Washington and David Rennie in Beijing Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China News - Defencelink: US Department of Defence National Missile Defence - Federation of American Scientists 30th anniversary of "ping-pong diplomacy" marked in Beijing [19 Mar '01] - Xinhua News Service China's Qian to US, aiming to block arms to Taiwan [18 Mar '01] - Inside China Today White House reveals Taiwan arms sale [17 Mar '01] - Washington Post Beijing eases stand in missile defence [15 Mar '01] - Washington Post China lobbies to block an arms sale to Tiawan [3 Mar '01] - Washington Post QIAN QICHEN, China's Vice-Premier and foreign policy supremo, arrived in America last night in an attempt to block arms sales to Taiwan and restrict plans for a missile defence shield. Qian Qichen arrives at La Guardia airport in New York Mr Bush has signalled a tougher stance against China, regarding it as a "strategic competitor", rather than talking, as Bill Clinton did, of a "strategic partnership". He has also made it clear that he sees Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as America's main allies in Asia. To symbolise this, Yoshiro Mori, the beleaguered Japanese Prime Minister, will meet Mr Bush this week before Mr Qian's appointment on Thursday. China, in response, has announced a sharp increase in defence spending. Several Asian countries, especially Japan, fear that they will be awkwardly caught in a new confrontation between China and America. Washington's new attitude towards China is part of a foreign policy that is tightly focused on what the Bush administration regards as national interests. More than a third of the 55 special envoy posts created by Mr Clinton have already been abolished and Mr Bush has said America will intervene abroad only when it has a direct stake in the outcome. In addition to the perennial disagreements over human rights and Taiwan, the democratic American ally which Beijing still regards as a rebel province, Mr Bush's missile defence proposals are likely to strain relations. Beijing fears that plans for a theatre missile defence system to counter the threat from North Korea, Iran and Iraq could neutralise China's nuclear capability. At his meeting with Mr Bush, Mr Qian will ask him to prevent American sales to Taiwan of advanced weapons such as the Patriot anti-missile and Aegis battle-management systems. In contrast to the latest tensions, Communist leaders last night hosted a 30th anniversary reunion of the Beijing table tennis tournament that ended decades of silence between the Cold War rivals. The guest of honour was Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State under President Nixon, who met many of the now-ageing diplomats who took part in "ping pong diplomacy". Students played a fresh Sino-US match in the same state guest house in western Beijing where Mr Kissinger stayed 30 years earlier before Mr Nixon's 1972 visit to China and Mr Kissinger played a match with Li Lanqing, a Chinese Vice-Premier. Chairman Mao once told Mr Nixon that he preferred dealing with Right-wingers because he found them more straightforward. Communist leaders have found that Republican administrations focus on trade, rather than thorny issues such as human rights. China makes little secret of its belief that all new US presidents can be "trained" in the ways of pragmatism, no matter how tough their talk about human rights or Taiwan on the election trail. Mr Bush, however, is conscious of the number of Republican friends that Taiwan has on Capitol Hill and in the early weeks of his administration has shown a determination to stick to his campaign pledges. Although Mr Clinton was seen in America as "soft on China", senior Chinese officials complained that he was untrustworthy and two-faced. He presided over the normalisation of trade ties with China but also said this would undermine one-party Communist rule. Mr Bush, whose father was ambassador to China before he became president, has accepted an invitation to visit Beijing in October. Mr Bush has already shown that he intends to be tougher on communism than Mr Clinton. When Gen Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, said he wanted "to pick up where President Clinton left off" on North Korea, Mr Bush was quick to disagree and has refused to endorse the "sunshine policy" of bringing the two Koreas together favoured by President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
