Posted on 03/07/2003 3:27:12 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Asian leaders, markets jittery following Bush speech
03/07/2003
HONG KONG – President Bush's warning about a possible war in Iraq spread a chill across Asia on Friday, causing stock markets to stumble amid fears that armed conflict is inevitable.
Leaders and their citizens expressed opposition to a military strike on Iraq while concluding that Bush had already decided against trying to achieve a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
"He's going to press ahead with a war against Iraq no matter what," said Mark Wong an employee of a Hong Kong computer company.
Eddie Tong, an insurance agent in Singapore, agreed: "He's just on a warpath."
Bush appeared to signal that war was imminent, hurling some of his harshest invectives yet at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and saying the United States doesn't "need anybody's permission" to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.
Prices fell in most Asian stock markets following Bush's speech and news conference, which occurred as the trading day got under way in the Far East.
Tokyo stocks closed at a nearly 20-year low on Friday, with the benchmark 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average down 2.69 percent at 8,144.12 points – its lowest since finishing at 8,111.83 on March 15, 1983. Other Asian markets were all lower late in the afternoon, with just a few still trading.
Hours before a crucial U.N. Security Council meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said Beijing remained opposed to military action.
"The majority of countries in the world stand for a political solution, and the opposition to war is prevailing," the official Xinhua News Agency quoted him as saying.
Xinhua said Tang, who is in New York, reaffirmed his support for a pledge by France, Russia and Germany to block any U.N. resolution that seeks to authorize force against Baghdad. But he stopped short of saying whether Beijing might use its own Security Council veto.
Many Asian nations have allied themselves with the United States in the anti-terrorism campaign but oppose military action against Iraq without support from the United Nations.
In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda repeated his government's view that a military strike against Iraq was unnecessary.
"We reject that," Wirayuda said. "Indonesia's position as a member of the nonaligned movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference is that we are against war in Iraq."
A spokeswoman for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tokyo supports the Security Council's efforts to reach a peaceful resolution. The Japanese government is continuing to "watch developments in the situation carefully," said the spokeswoman, Misako Kaji.
Many people said they were skeptical Bush's motives and feared a long, traumatic conflict.
"If war breaks out in Iraq, it will be more brutal and devastating than the Vietnam War because of advancements in technologies and weaponry," said Nguyen Xuan Hoe, 39, a customer at a street stall in Hanoi.
Oh, is that right, Japan? I seem to recall some rather bellicose statements from you last week about attacking North Korea preemptively.
Funny how all these smarmy hypocrites change their tune when THEIR self-centered butts are on the line.
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