Extracts.
China Attaches Importance to Sino-African Relations: Vice President
Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao Wednesday said the Chinese government has
attached great importance to its relations with African countries, noting
that it is a major part of China's peaceful and independent foreign policy
to strengthen and develop friendly cooperation with African countries.
The visiting vice president made the remarks during talks with his Ugandan
counterpart Speciosa Kazibwe at the International Conference Center in the
Ugandan capital Kampala on Wednesday afternoon.
China supports African countries in deciding their political systems on
their own and choosing the development roads which best suit their national
conditions, said Hu.
It also supports African countries to guard themselves against external
interference, safeguard their national sovereignty and political stability,
promote the development of their economy, and to enjoy an equal say in
international affairs, he added.
China will continue to give economic assistance within its own power to
African countries with no political conditions attached and develop trade
and economic cooperation with them in various fields, said the vice
president.
Hu stressed that China will forge a long-term, stable and new-typed
relationship of equality and mutual benefit with African countries based on
the principle of "sincere friendship, equal treatment, unity and
cooperation, common progress and looking forward to the future".
Recalling the successful China-Africa Cooperation Forum held in Beijing last
October, the vice president said the event was aimed at strengthening unity
and cooperation between China and African countries.
The forum has formed a good framework for the further development of
relations between China and African countries, he said.
During the talks, Ugandan Vice President Kazibwe spoke highly of China's
support to Africa's development, saying the China-Africa Forum shows China'
s willingness to support the development of African countries.
She said the Ugandan people appreciate it very much that China will write
off part of African countries' debt, adding that this move will surely
promote friendship between China and African counties.
****
It's Time for US to Pay Debts
"It's right and proper to pay off the money one owes". However, what is
inconceivable is that for more than a decade, the United States
<http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/data/usa.html> has all along been in
arrears with the UN membership due, with the result that the United Nations
has been in financial straits and has had to borrow all around in order to
keep it running.
In the past two years, the UN fiscal budget has experienced a zero growth of
about US$2.5 billion. Meanwhile, according to statistics, the United States
has so far been in arrears with US$1.5 billion worth of UN membership due.
On the Christmas Eve last year, the plenary session of the 55th UN General
Assembly passed, by the method of reaching unanimity through consultation, a
new program on UN regular budget and the ratio of share of expenditures.
This was a similar resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly for the
first time since 1973.
According to the resolution, the rate of assessment on the regular budget
for the United States is to be reduced from the original 25 percent to 22
percent, its share for peace-keeping expenditure will also be cut from the
original 30 percent to 27 percent. The resolution says, if the United States
fails to clear off all the membership due it owes by 2003, the ratio of its
share of membership due will be restored to the previous level.
The establishment of the United Nations was one of the major events that
affected the process of human history in the 20th century. At present, its
activities have covered many fields of human life, in particular, it is
playing an irreplaceable role in safeguarding world peace and promoting
common development. The final resolution passed by the United Nations at the
end of the century was a resolution concerning the rate of the share of
membership due, an issue that concerns its own subsistence.
People cannot help asking: Many poor developing countries can pay membership
due in time, why then the United States, the richest country in the world,
cannot fulfill its bounden duty as set in the "ability to pay" principle and
thus becomes the country owing the most debts to the United Nations? Could
it be that it is really so poor as to be unable to pay the membership due?
The answer is definitely negative. At present, the US economy is in a stage
of unprecedented growth with its annual GNP reaching as high as nearly
US$10,000 billion, representing about 30 percent of the world total.
Compared with the huge sum of US$10,000 billion, the petty amount of US$1.5
billion is just like "a hair from nine cows' back-the least amount".
In sharp contrast to this, the United States, in its bid to maintain its
strategic superiority, consolidate and strengthen its position as a
superpower, stints no money in increasing its military expenditures.
According to the Americans' own estimation, from 1940 to 1996, the money the
US spent on the development and production of nuclear weapons alone had
reached as high as US$5,000 billion. After the conclusion of the Cold War,
the United States had twice substantially increased its defense
expenditures. Last year, the 2001 defense budget passed by the US Congress
stands at US$288 billion, a sharp rise of US$18 billion over that of the
previous fiscal year.
If only the United States can use less than one-tenth of its newly increased
military spending to repay its overdue membership fee, it can readily remove
the label "a country which repudiates a debt". Regrettably, the United
States simply does not want to do so.
The US defaults of UN membership due is not an "economic issue", but rather,
it does so out of "political consideration". As everybody knows, the United
States has special relationship with the United Nations. The United Nations
was the cornerstone for post-war international cooperation designed by
former US President Roosevelt. The United States held the dominant right
over the whole process from the proposal and formulation of the UN Charter
to deciding on the founding members. The United States not only provided the
United Nations with a seat for its headquarters, but had all along been the
biggest financial supporter of the United Nations.
However, the United States has also gained inestimable benefits from the
United Nations. Leaving aside the fact that the establishment of the UN
headquarters in New York has brought considerable economic benefits for the
United States, from the political point of view alone, the United States has
long been flaunting the banner of the United Nations to pursue its global
strategy, therefore, in the eyes of many Americans, the United Nations is
only "an extremely effective tool" in the hands of the United States.
However, along with the participation of numerous developing countries, the
combination of forces of the United Nations has undergone tremendous change
and its role has experienced qualitative change, it is no longer a "voting
machine" to be willfully controlled by the United States, in the view of
some US Congressmen, the "membership due paid by the United States is
incommensurate to its right to speak in the United Nations".
That is one of the main reasons why the United States has "turned hostile"
to the United Nations. On the other hand, US defaults of membership due have
put the UN finance in a straitened circumstance. This can further "prove"
the colossal expenditures of the United Nations and its poor management, it
also serves as a foil to the necessity for the United States to tighten its
control over the United Nations so as to incorporate the reform of UN
agencies into the American concept.
In addition, although globalism after Cold War continues to sway US
diplomatic policy, US domestic politics tend to be conservative, the trend
of new isolationism has raised its head, the United States is unwilling to
participate too many UN actions which bring not much repayment to it. This
pragmatic attitude characterized by "utilizing it when necessary; throwing
it away when unnecessary" naturally also dampens its enthusiasm in paying
membership due.
The American long-term defaults of huge sum of membership due are very
unpopular, it is not only widely reproached within the United Nations and
thus seriously harms the image of the United States, but domestically also
goes against the popular will. Seven US former Secretaries of State once
sent letters to US Congress, earnestly urging the latter to approve
allocations to repay its UN membership due in arrears as soon as possible.
At the turn of the century, acceptance of the UN's new program on the ratio
of share of membership due by various UN member states demonstrates the
determination and political will of various countries to strengthen the role
of the United Nations.
The United States has long been complaining that the proportion of its share
of membership due is too big and demanding a reduction. Now, this demand of
the United States has largely been satisfied. As the saying goes, "Credit is
weightier than gold", if the United States still fails to pay its overdue
membership fee timely, fully and unconditionally, what else can it have to
say.
****
Venezuela Rejects US Dollar as National Currency
The Venezuela <http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/data/Venezuela.html>
Central Bank (BCV) discarded the plan to adopt the US dollar as national
currency on Tuesday.
In a statement to the press, Diego Luis Castellanos, president of the BCV,
said that the Venezuelan Constitution only recognizes the bolivar as
national currency.
If a sole regional currency is proposed, the US dollar will not be
considered either, he added.
Among South American countries, only Ecuador uses the US dollar as its
national currency.
Regarding the proposal by the Inter-American Development Bank President
Enrique Iglesias to use a unique regional currency -- similar to the
European Union -- Castellanos said the plan will be discussed at the next
meeting of the multilateral organization in Santiago, Chile.
****
Anti-cult Association Set up by Former Falun Gong Practitioners
One hundred and fifteen former Falun Gong practitioners recently launched an
anti-cult association in Yunnan
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/province/yunnan.html> Province,
southwest China and they themselves become the first group of members of the
association.
This is the first non-governmental anti-cult association formed by former
Falun Gong followers in China, local sources said.
Xu Taiyuan and Xu Xiaohua, two major tutors of the former Yunnan general
station for promoting Falun Gong, were among the first members of the
anti-cult association.
They said that they support the Falun Gong ban from the bottom of their
hearts. "We hope to do something to assist the Party and the government to
root out all cult organizations," they said in a message advocating the
setup of the association.
The two former Falun Gong followers said that they have realized, from their
own experience, the significance of uprooting Falun Gong and other cult
organizations in saving hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners
and maintaining social stability and economic development of China.
****
Chinese Vice President Ends Visit to Cyprus
Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao
<http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/leaders/vpresident.html> left
Nicosia for Kampala on Wednesday, winding up his two-day official visit to
the Mediterranean island of Cyprus
<http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/data/Cyprus.html> .
During his stay in Cyprus, Hu held talks with Cypriot President Glafcos
Clerides and President of House of Representatives Spyros Kyprioanou on
bilateral ties and regional issues of mutual concern.
Three bilateral agreements on investment protection and cooperation in
telecommunications were also signed during the visit.
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