Posted on 03/11/2002 6:56:33 AM PST by TLBSHOW
— BEIJING (Reuters) -
China said Monday it was deeply shocked by a report in the Los Angeles Times about a U.S. move to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries including China.
State television quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi demanding an explanation and stressing that China and the United States had agreed not to target each other with nuclear weapons.
"Like many other countries, China is deeply shocked with the content of this report," Sun said. "The U.S. side has a responsibility to explain this.
"China is a peace-loving country and poses no threat to any country."
The Los Angeles Times said Saturday that a Defense Department study outlined a contingency plan to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries -- China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria.
It quoted the report as saying the Pentagon should be ready to use nuclear weapons in a war between China and Taiwan, or in an attack by North Korea on the South, among other scenarios.
China regards Taiwan as a rebel province and has threatened to attack if the island declares independence or delays reunification talks indefinitely.
The United States is Taiwan's biggest arms supplier and has pledged to help the island defend itself.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday the classified Pentagon report was simply "sound, military, conceptual planning" and not a precursor to any imminent U.S. action.
But Sun reminded Washington that former U.S. President Bill Clinton had reached an agreement with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on a visit to Beijing in 1998 not to target each other's country with nuclear arms.
"China has always upheld that all nuclear weapons should be comprehensively banned and completely destroyed, and that nuclear countries should pledge unconditionally not to use nuclear weapons first, and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons on non-nuclear countries or regions," Sun said.
"China and the U.S. have also reached agreement on not aiming nuclear weapons on each other," he added. "We believe the pursuit of peace and cooperation and the promotion of development have become the major trend of today's world."
"Any cold war mentality will run counter to this trend and will come to no end at all."
Nepal? Vietnam? USSR?
GIVE US A BREAK, CHINA.
You have far more ruthless contingency planning as a matter of course--breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-between. You even casually threaten LA with a huge nuke. It's a bit surprising you haven't nuked Tibet long before this. You probably have some nukes prepositioned in the U.S of A already. Certainly Panama is close enough, if not.
You are good at howling. . . posturing. . . . manipulating. You aren't so good at self-disclosure and truth telling.
Borghead: "How many countries have china attacked in the last 20 years? Zero, how many have the U.S attacked: 10+. The U.S is the aggressive warmonger in the world not china."
They attacked India in 1959 and in 1962 - both were unprovoked attacks that effectively made enemies of the two ancient civilizations which had known each other for over 3,000 years. I'm sure others can cite better examples of Chinese aggression in the region.
Borghead what are you doing on this site?
Can't wait for Comrad Kofi's comments.
I think China thought they were off the hook just because we have a trace agreement going with them.
I think China thought they were off the hook just because we have a trade agreement going with them.
And Reuters is willing to help them along...
Great insight, and a bump for you.
Try telling that to Tibet, Vietnam, South Korea, Russia, India or Taiwan. Or anyone else who noticed the 17% increase in defense spending they recently announced.
Like the PRC doesn't have contingency plans to fire some big ones at us?
Just more thin-skinned behavior from everyone's favorite set of thugs.
Curious time frame you picked.
Conflicts that the PRC has engaged in:
1950: South Korea, UN Forces
1950, 1959: Tibet (still occupied)
1959, 1962: India (some territory still occupied)
1969: Soviet Union
1979: Vietnam
1988-: Vietnam, Phillipines (Spratly Islands)
Then there is Taiwan/ROC, but the dates of conflict or aggression there are too numerous to list.
The lack of naked aggression over the last "20 years" - which the conflict over the Spratlys heavily qualifies - means little per se and has less to do with a change of intentions so much as a focus on internal development and reform - and a change in tactics.
Otherwise I'm curious how you'd explain the advanced short and medium range ballistic missile systems the PRC is has been giving and is giving *right now* to peace-loving, democratic states like Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan - or the assistance it gave Pakistan in developing its own nuclear weapons program.
US interventions - and I don't necessarily agree with all of them - have always been in the context of multilateral efforts as a result of aggression (Iraq, Afghanistan) or humanitarian crises (Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo).
It is difficult to discern any such similar pattern in China's aggressive foreign policies over the five decades of its existence.
But given that the former is a liberal constitutional republic and that the latter is a brutal neo-fascist dictatorship, that's hardly surprising.
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