Bush, Jiang Vow to Cooperate in War (Look For More Military Exchange Programs For China)

SHANGHAI: US President George W Bush on Friday welcomed China's "firm commitment" to the war on terrorism and publicly downplayed sources of friction with Bejing after his first meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

"There's a firm commitment by this (Chinese) government to cooperate in intelligence matters and to help interdict financing of terrorist organisations," Bush told a joint news conference with Jiang.

China has been sharing intelligence and has sealed its border with Afghanistan amid US-led strikes on the country's Taliban rulers for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, blamed for September 11 terror strikes on the United States, said a US official, declining to be identified. But Beijing has not explicitly endorsed the US campaign, and Jiang called for restraint even as he emphasised he and Bush were committed to "working together with the rest of the international community to combat terrorism." "We hope that anti-terrorism efforts can have clearly defined targets, and efforts should hit accurately, and also avoid innocent casualties," said Jiang, who also called for the United Nations to "be brought into full play." The anonymous US official said China was not "layering" conditions for its support, that US action had roots in the UN charter's self-defence clause and that the world body would play a central role in rebuilding Afghanistan.

The agreement to fight terrorism appeared to have no spillover benefits for traditional sources of friction between Washington and Beijing, including human rights, arms proliferation and the volatile question of Taiwan.

Jiang said the last issue, if "properly handled" according to bilateral accords, would not blot a shared "bright future." Bush said he had "explained" his views on Taiwan, offering no details. Bush aides later said he had strongly restated his commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act, under which Washington conducts yearly sales of arms to the island.

Taiwan, which China regards as a rebel province, announced earlier on Friday that it was boycotting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in protest at Beijing's "barbaric" refusal to let it send its envoy of choice.

The US leader, in an apparent reference to China's crackdown on Uighur separatists in northwestern Xinjiang province, warned that the war on terrorism "must never be an excuse to persecute minorities." And he stressed "the need to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology."

Bush acknowledged he had left the United States "at a very difficult time", amid a germ warfare scare tied to anthrax-laced letters, worries about possible new attacks and uncertainty about US reprisals for last month's onslaught.

"But this meeting is important because of the campaign against terror, because of the ties between our two great nations, because of the opportunity and hope that trade provides for both our people," said the US leader. Senior US administration officials who declined to be identified said Bush had briefly made the case for his missile defence plan, which China opposes, and was much more forceful on topics including religious freedom and weapons sales.

[CLOSING THE RANKS: The fight against terrorism has brought China and the US closer but differences in areas like treatment of minorities and weapons proliferation remain]--AP--(Pictured on Taipei Times Website)

US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin ) declared themselves partners in the war on terrorism yesterday, although Jiang cautioned that US airstrikes on Afghanistan must be aimed at clearly defined targets to "avoid innocent casualties."

"President Jiang and the government stand side by side with the American people as we fight this evil force," Bush said after his first meeting with his Chinese counterpart.

Bush came to Shanghai at a time when the sometimes volatile Sino-American relations are on the upswing, but both leaders alluded in a joint news conference to lingering differences.

"The war on terrorism must never be an excuse to persecute minorities," Bush said, an apparent reference to China's treatment of the restive Uighur population in China's northwest Xinjiang Province.

Bush said he also stressed the need "to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology." On Sept. 1, the State Department imposed sanctions on a Chinese arms producer for allegedly selling missile technology to Pakistan in violation of a US-Chinese agreement signed last November.

Jiang predicted a "bright future" for US-Chinese relations so long as the US sticks to bilateral agreements on Taiwan, an issue that has bedeviled ties between Washington and Beijing, off and on, for more than 50 years.

Bush began his first full day in China in 26 years by heading in midmorning from his downtown hotel to a guest house in western Shanghai. Security was unusually tight. No other traffic was permitted along the motorcade route. Groups of pedestrians, most of them expressionless, stood along the intersections.

Bush told Jiang he was impressed by the gleaming metropolis Shanghai has become since he was here in the mid-1970s, when his father headed the US diplomatic mission. Then, Bush said, he could not have imagined "the dynamic and impressive Shanghai of 2001."

Jiang said he made clear to Bush that he is "opposed to terrorism in all of its forms."

At the same time, alluding to the US-led air strikes on Afghanistan that began Oct. 7, Jiang said China hopes "anti-terrorism efforts can have clearly defined targets. And efforts should hit accurately, and also avoid innocent casualties." Some Afghan civilians have been killed in the air campaign.

In praising China's cooperation on terrorism, Bush noted that China has shared intelligence with the US and interdicted financing of terrorist organizations.

"There was no hesitation, there was no doubt they'd stand with our people during this terrible time," he said.

Bush met with Jiang on the eve of the annual APEC summit, which is expected to approve a declaration expressing the readiness of the 21 participants to combat international terrorism.

Jiang also said the UN should play a major role in the effort to bring stability to Afghanistan -- a view fully shared by the Bush administration.

After their initial meeting, Bush and Jiang had a lunch featuring shark's fin, fried lobster, steak and four vegetables.

October 14, 2001

Beware China's ties to the Taliban

Jesse Helms

The deadly attacks on the United States in New York and Washington prompted some suggestions that the U.S. must work with Communist China to combat international terrorism. This is a badly misguided proposal that merits a hasty burial. Given the resolve the Bush administration has displayed toward China to date, it is unlikely to fall into this trap.

The very notion that the United States needs Chinese assistance is based on the flawed assumption that as a member of the U.N. Security Council, China's acquiescence somehow becomes essential to the adoption of a resolution approving the use of force against whomever the U.S. deems responsible for the attacks in New York and Washington. To the contrary, nothing could be more disastrous.

We have been down this U.N. road to disaster before. During Operation Desert Shield, the United States sought the approval of the Security Council to use force against Saddam Hussein, but the resolution that was, in fact, adopted, approved the use of force only to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, nothing more.

The very nature of that resolution tied the hands of U.S. forces and was one of the justifications used for stopping Operation Desert Storm with the Iraqi Republican Guard intact and Saddam still in power.

That was a mistake that has been regretted to this day, and now that the forces of international terrorism have struck New York and Washington, the U.S. cannot afford to waste time and energy consulting the United Nations.

The second rationale for working with the Chinese is the weird assumption that China and the United States share a common interest in fighting terrorism.

What a naive and dangerous fantasy.

The fact is, the Communist Chinese government is in bed with every one of the terrorist and terrorist-supporting rogue regimes (is it not now time that we dispose of the laughable "countries of concern" nonsense?) of the Middle East.

China's alliance with major rogue regimes has been so extensive and so well known for so long that it is absurd to pretend otherwise. Indeed, it is equally absurd to expect assistance against terrorism from a regime that has supplied nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan and Iran, chemical weapons materials to Iran, missile technology to Libya and air defense equipment to help Iraq shoot down U.S. pilots, all of which China has done.

Less well known is that the Chinese government is one of the foremost benefactors of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, the focus of so much of U.S. attention since Sept. 11. Moreover, China is the largest foreign investor in Afghanistan.

On Sept. 11, Pakistan's Frontier Post reported that the Chinese and Afghani governments had signed a new economic and technical cooperation agreement. A defense cooperation agreement was signed in 1998 after Taliban officials allowed Chinese scientists to inspect unexploded cruise missiles that had been fired on Afghanistan in retaliation for Osama bin Laden's attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa.

Those who imagine that the U.S. shares common interests with the Chinese in combating Islamic-based terrorism most likely base their assumption on China's fight against supposed Uighur terrorism in Xinjiang Province, formerly known as East Turkestan.

But there is an ugly catch to that: If the U.S. should end up receiving any kind of support from Beijing for our anti-terrorist efforts, it will almost certainly come at the price of acquiescing in China's crackdown on the Uighurs (as well as its attempts to crush Tibet and isolate Taiwan).

That would be a moral calamity, for there is no justification in lumping the Uighurs with the murderous fanatics who demonstrably mean us harm. The Uighurs are engaged in a just struggle for freedom from Beijing's tyrannical rule, for the most part peacefully. For this, they have been viciously suppressed, with the Chinese government arresting and torturing political prisoners, destroying mosques and opening fire on peaceful demonstrations.

The goals of the United States are clear. Having been attacked, America properly seeks to punish and deter fanatical, mostly small, Islamic groups and their state sponsors. China, on the other hand, has two goals, both utterly incompatible with ours.

Internally, the Chinese government is at war with all of Islam. As a religion, and as a means of organizing and inspiring people, Islam represents a mortal threat to Chinese communist rule. Externally, China's ultimate goal is to destroy America's status as the sole superpower in the world.

To the Chinese government, this is a zero-sum game: anything that embarrasses, diminishes or bloodies the United States automatically serves China's interest. (Witness the nationalistic glee, assiduously stoked by the Chinese government, that was on display on the Internet in China in the wake of the attacks.)

In its anti-U.S. effort, the Chinese government finds the Islamic rogue regimes of the Middle East to be useful allies.

Strategically and morally, the United States cannot and must not assume that China is part of a solution to terrorism. Indeed, Communist China is a very large part of the problem.

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Jesse Helms of North Carolina is the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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Updated at 12:00 a.m.

Like we do not have enough student Visa exchange programs that bring us terrorists, now we are doing exchange programs with Jiang. This utopic dream of the benefits of mutual cooperation in war as if it was business as usual is getting out of control.

The BUsh crowd need to be warned about their naive views: It is of little risk for a bank to carry the risk of insuring your deposits, However it is of extremely great risk when this bank is supposed to insure your life with a military budget and 24 hour armed guards.

China can be a bank of slave laborers, but certainly its benefits are not to also include the protection of our lives. Deals like that are wishful thinking since human life and human life protection cannot be quantified.

In other words, the monetary and economic globalization management cannot be ported to global military management. It's nonsense. Why would China risk its whole economy and well being to protect America militarily? Asking CHina for slave labor to make Tshirts is one thing as it helps China control its crowds, but asking Chinese people to bear arms for us while disarming us of the 2nd Amendment is national suicide. The one with the weapon is not a slave that will listen, he will lead.

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