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/China Military Experts Say /
Bush Wants Cold War With China,
From: Mavlan Yasin/<MYasin@UniversalCare.com>
BEIJING , Oct 17,2000 (Agence France)/
Chinese military think tank weighed in on the U.S. presidential elections
Tuesday warning that if Republican candidate George W. Bush wins next
month's vote he would undermine the "one China" policy, destabilize
the global balance of power and restart the Cold War.
"Bush Jr.'s position on Washington's China policy is based on the
belief that China is the main rival of the United States," Jiang
Lingfei and Fu Tao, leading international experts at China's National
Defense University said in a joint article in this week's Beijing Review.
"He proposes that China is a strategic rival of the United States
rather than a strategic partner, and says that a government led by
him would treat China with a stern and tough attitude,"
the article said. It was the first article in the official Chinese
press to explicitly oppose
a candidate in the hotly-contested U.S. presidential elections
between Bush and Vice President Al Gore on November
7. If Bush becomes president the United States would
"contain" China by enhancing its relationship with Japan,
strengthening Taiwan's defense
capabilities and executing "all-out deployment" of a National
Missile Defense and a Theater Missile Defense that would include
Taiwan, it said. Such a position would bring improving Sino-U.S.
relations "back into peril," and would not only lead to a
new Cold War, but possibly an "inevitable war" over
Taiwan, it said. The article was based on statements made by Bush in
his foreign policy speech made on November 19 and in the Republican
Party platform. China routinely calls the Taiwan question the
"most sensitive issue facing Sino-U.S. relations" and has
vowed to use military force to retake Taiwan if the island territory
should move towards independence.
The article said Bush's statements have encouraged Taiwan's new President
Chen Shui-bian to refuse Beijing's advances toward establishing a dialogue
between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. "Chen Shui-bian's
administration has got tougher recently regarding the independence
of Taiwan, which is related to Bush Jr.'s announcement that he
would help Taiwan with its self defense," the article said. In
response to Beijing's demands, the United States has consistently supported
China's "One China Policy" accepting Taiwan as part of Chinese
territory since diplomatic relations were established in 1979. However,
the United States has insisted that any eventual reunification must be
done peacefully as outlined in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, a U.S. law
that pledges to aid Taiwan in its self-defense. ((c) 2000 Agence France
Presse)
