China-Cuba/US-Taiwan tit-for-tat

yahoo.comnews/ Asia Times ^ | June 22, 2001 | Dalia Acosta, Inter Press Service

[Cincinatus' Wife]

July 7, 2003
Cuban President Fidel Castro (R) shakes hands with Li Changchun, member of the Chinese Politburo Standing Committee, prior to a meeting at the Cuban State Council in Havana, July 7, 2003. Cuba and China are holding meetings to strengthen political and commercial ties. REUTERS/Rafael Perez

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June 22, 2001 HAVANA - Military relations between Cuba and China that allegedly extend to arms sales to this Caribbean island nation as well as joint intelligence activity has heightened tension between the two socialist nations and the United States.

Reports refuted by Beijing and Havana have appeared in the US media since Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to Cuba in April. "For over 30 years, Cuba has not imported any weapon from China," Cuban President Fidel Castro said on Tuesday night on a special program broadcast by Cuba's state-monopolized TV. Sun Yuxi, spokesman for China's ministry of Foreign Relations, had already stated that reports claiming his country was selling arms to Cuba were totally unfounded.

Citing a US intelligence report, the Washington Times reported on June 12 that at least three boats carrying explosives and other weapons had been traced from China to the Cuban port of Mariel in the past few months. According to the newspaper, China was taking advantage of Cuba's proximity to the United States to carry out electronic espionage to intercept US communications.

The government of President George W Bush is "very much concerned with this PLA [People's Liberation Army] cooperation [with Cuba] and movement of military equipment into Cuba", James Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said at a subcommittee hearing in the US House of Representatives.

However, US State Department spokesman Phil Reeker denied on June 12 that the government had reports confirming the allegations set forth by the Washington Times. Senate Republican leader Trent Lott said that if the allegations were confirmed, it would not be a good sign for China.

China, the United States' fourth biggest trading partner, with a bilateral trade flow that stands above US$110 billion, could be subjected to economic sanctions for selling weapons to Cuba, which Washington includes on its list of countries that engage in state-sponsored terrorism.

Chinese military assistance to Cuba is limited to logistical support like radars and anti-aircraft equipment, according to intelligence sources cited by the daily El Nuevo Herald, which is published in Spanish in Miami, a stronghold of the anti-Castro Cuban exile community.

Jason Feer, the publisher of CubaNews, a US-based on-line newsletter on Cuba, wrote in the June issue that it "seems unlikely that China would risk a major confrontation with the United States by supplying advanced weaponry that the United States would view as threatening". He added that China saw Cuba more as a "convenient bargaining chip in its ongoing rivalry with the United States". Furthermore, said Feer, China sees its relationship with Cuba as analogous to the United States' ties to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.

In April, the Bush administration approved the sale to Taiwan of eight diesel submarines, 12 P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft, four Kidd destroyers and other weapons, along with the corresponding technical training. Meanwhile, three US missiles were tested Wednesday in Taiwan.

Beijing criticized Bush's decision to sell advanced weaponry to Taiwan as "meddling" in China's internal affairs, and said it reserved the right to take measures.

The row over US arms sales to Taiwan compounded the tension triggered by the April 1 emergency landing of a US spy plane in China, after it collided with a Chinese military plane.

The geopolitical differences between Beijing and Washington also arise from China's intention to counter, and if possible eliminate, the United States' predominant military presence in southeast Asia, especially in the South China Sea.

US analysts say military aid to Havana is a response to Washington by Beijing, which is also taking advantage of this island's geographic location for carrying out surveillance activities.

But Castro maintained on Tuesday that high-level officials from China and Cuba who met in December in Havana did not reach any agreement on weapons sales. The president also said a report was available which showed that the three Chinese ships that docked in Cuba were carrying food like rice and beans - "weapons to kill the appetite", he joked - building materials, and medical equipment.

He confirmed that the first shipment, which arrived May 10, 2000, was indeed destined for the armed forces, but consisted of donations of olive green drill, cotton and polyester cloth, white nylon material for mosquito screens, boots, buttons, thread and needles.

According to Castro, since the 1990 collapse of the east European socialist bloc which triggered Cuba's decade-long severe economic troubles, this country has not invested "a single cent" in weapons purchases. The years of military aid from the former Soviet Union had guaranteed an endless supply of firearms and "industrial-scale quantities of ammunition" to make sure any "invader" would have to pay "an unpayable price if they were unfortunately that stupid", said Castro.

Havana also maintains the capacity to set up a network of anti- tank and anti-personnel mines in case of a US military attack, the president added.

(Inter Press Service)

[GOP_1900AD]

If you are on the job then tell me about the road mobile missile disparity between the US and its anti Western enemies. What's your assessment of that? You seem to not want to discuss this. Why?

[GOP_1900AD]

My own acquaintances in the PRC (both natives and expats) are certainly not hurting. And Mr. Allen, in spite of all his claims, can put this additional FACT in his pipe and smoke it.

[Centurion2000]

Where are our road mobile strategic missiles?

Sitting in ballistic missile submarines where they are not bound by roads, have 10 times the area of the US to hide in, and can shoot with a 4-6 minutes flight time.

SLBM's are truly the way to go.

[The Pheonix]

The US Dept of defense Official Report on the PLA says that the PLA is so SECRETIVE that the US DOD still knows very little of what actually goes on inside (the PLA)

and yet, isn't it wee bit far-fetched that an outsider (non-citizen of China)can say that he trains half of the PLA pilots.? now, why would the PLA allow non-Chinese citizens to train their pilots ? especially when they (PLA) is so ultra secretive ?

In China, one use the term Fu-jian instead of Hokkien, and GuangDong instead of Cantonese. Hokkien and Cantonese are used in Singapore and Malaysia.

[Paul Ross]

And we are onto it, and on the job.

'Zat so? So where and when have the oppressed whistle-blowers on Chinese espionage been restored to their jobs?

[GOP_1900AD]

Sure we need SLBMs. But we also need road mobile. We'll be sorry we ditched the MX as a road mobile ICBM and only siloed a few of them, and even sorrier for having no credible IRBMs. Mark my words.

[Centurion2000]

Sure we need SLBMs. But we also need road mobile. We'll be sorry we ditched the MX as a road mobile ICBM and only siloed a few of them, and even sorrier for having no credible IRBMs. Mark my words.

Why the problem with no road mobile ? Where is the advantage ?

IRBM's ? Who in the Western Hemisphere is going to launch a ballistic missile at us that we couldn't hit with a nuclear cruise missile ?

[Brian Allen]

<< In China, one use the term Fu-jian instead of Hokkien, and GuangDong instead of Cantonese .... >>

Not "in china."

Only in peking where your psychopathological mass-murdering mandarin wannabe masters sit and foment the evil with which you delude your pathetic selves you will "restore the chinese race" to its "past grandure."

The "grandure" that in five thousand years has not seen a single marketable creation, innovation, production or industry? A major work of art -- or a government acceptable to its slaves?

To the "grandure" that is that not long ago saw "china" totally and abjectly defeated in war by a handful of Englishmen in a few wooden ships at the end of a ten thousand miles and six months long supply chain. And that sat by as the serial-child-rapist and predatory psychopath pedophile, Mao Tze Tung slaughtered ninety million unarmed innocents while serially-raping thousands of their girl and boy children.

And in realisty exists in your fevered and deluded, hesperophobic and much-vaunted-girly-man-pla pea brains.

Oh -- and this might help you in the future: You might better serve your masters -- and evil's -- interests if you read what I write -- rather than inventing it. You guys have a bad enough time handling my Truth -- or any Truth, come to that -- without further handicapping yourselves by putting in my mouth even more delusional fantasy than you have absorbed all of your lives in brainwashing. [AKA "school"]

And when you make up stuff, your already-transparent and very very poor Xerox copy of Western Intelligence [Similar to your psychopathologically-interpreted very very poor Xerox copy of Western free enterprise and of Judeo-Christian/Western Civilization -- "Human Civilization," that is)] gives you away every time!

You can put suits on the Jiang Gang and put the gangster Butcher of Occupied Tibet in charge of all y'all and even call him "president" -- but at the end of the day every last one of them will still be a lying, looting, thieving, mass-murdering gangster bastard. Ruthlessly ruling a billion squalid slaves.

[The Pheonix]

Wait a minute there

The chinese invented paper, silk, the compass ,civil service, the ship's rudder etc etc

Anyway, time to cut the crap

We think we know who you are; and just for fun, let's play the game of esponage, OK? here's our guess

If we are not wrong, you could be a certain Mr. "CHANDRA", from an American-based semiconductors (listed on the NASDAQ), and you may be based somewhere in Arizona. You might have migrated from Malaysia a few years ago. You could be a Malaysian Indian.....

Plse excuse us if we are wrong. Don't take it too seriously


Who are we. ?

Would you believe, that we are all EX-CIA and EX-FBI

And our hobby is playing the game of P.I. MAGNUM

[HighRoadToChina]

Communist China's goals are to tie the hands of America through proxy warfare. If they can get millions of Mexicans to pour through the border that would be just peachy.

Cuba is THE focal point of all Communist foment in Central and South America.

Cuba is the cancer eating away at our Freedom and Liberty through what it is doing in Mexico, Venezula, etc. As long as Cuba is not free, America is in danger.

[The Pheonix]

If the millions of illegal Mexicans are determined to find a better life in the US, it would be a difficult task for any force to stem the flood completely

If they are happy in Mexico and refuse to go illegally across the border into the US, it would be impossible to force them to, short of pointing shot-guns at their backs

Are the ChiComs by any chance ,pointing shotguns at 1,000,0000 Mexicans, forcing them to flood the US????????

What a funny scene that would make---imagine PLA troopers at the US-Mexico border, saying to 100,0000s of Mexicans,"You no go-eee, we gonna to shoot you "

[HighRoadToChina]

You haven't read the Art of War.

They don't have to point any guns. They only have to foment instability: Just destablize the Mexican government, create financial disasters, etc. And millions of Mexicans will gladly pour north.

[GOP_1900AD]

Where are you coming from? Are you pro PRC, pro KMT, pro DPP, or none of the above? Are you from the US or are you from China? Your own apparent philosophy is inconsistent and hints as triangulation and dialectic. As for mine on the other hand, with neither shame nor arrogance, I proclaim myself to be a defender of Western Civilization and its non Western allies, who hails from the hard Right. I unambiguously stand against the enemies of the West, in particular the Trans-Eurasian Axis, which has been well described by Bodansky, Nyquist, Nemets, and a number of other analysts. So, you who call yourself Mr. Allen, where do you really stand? Stop the nonsense and tell us.