no "chinese" this christmas please...
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Posted on 12/04/2001 4:10:05 PM PST by tallhappy
Wednesday, December 5, 2001
Sino-US military ties set to resume
EXCLUSIVE by RAY CHEUNG
High-level military exchanges between China and the United States look set to resume after a six-month suspension sparked by the spy plane incident in April, Pentagon sources say.
A senior US Defence Department official was in Beijing negotiating the resumption, the sources said.
''We are ready to engage China and now we're waiting to see what Beijing will agree to,'' a senior Pentagon official said. A formal announcement is expected soon, after the official returns to Washington this week.
According to another US military source, Washington would propose restarting strategic defence consultations and meetings at the secretary and assistant-secretary level.
A resumption would signal a further significant improvement in Sino-US relations. All military exchanges were suspended by the Pentagon after the Hainan incident in April in which a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter collided, forcing the American plane to land on the southern island. The American crew was held for 11 days. The Chinese pilot died.
The Pentagon ordered all US military contacts with China, including social gatherings, to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
According to the Pentagon official, the US wants to get exchanges back to the pre-2000 levels.
However, the resumption of exchanges may not include middle to low-level encounters such as troop manoeuvres and medical operations as in the past. The Pentagon believed these exchanges improved the operational capability of the Chinese military, the military source said.
The planned resumption had been helped by China's support of the US-led war on terrorism after the terrorist attacks on September 11, the source said.
The attacks had helped shift thinking among many at the Pentagon, who previously did not want any contact with the Chinese military, particularly Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of China's harshest critics. ''September 11 changed everything. People now see the value of having a strategic dialogue with China,'' the source said.
In late September, Chinese security experts met US officials to share intelligence on the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Last Friday, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya met US Undersecretary of State John Bolton to discuss arms control. And at the weekend, the US 7th Fleet battle group made a port call in Hong Kong.
Today, US ambassador-at-large Francis Taylor will meet Vice-Foreign Ministers Li Zhaoxing and Wang Yi, and PLA Deputy Chief of Staff Xiong Guangkai for two days of talks on the war against terrorism.
Corps own politicans and corps get cheap labor from China. Politicans get their pockets lined and their campaigns paid for through corp donations. Of course though if the DEMs do it we also call it corruption. Otherwise we disguise the cutting our nose off to spite our face by calling it Free Trade. What was called evil this time last year is now called good. What changed in China can anyone tell me? Nothing has changed except they forced down one of our recon planes.
Then why should we be helping them? If we condemned Clinton and congress for their China policy then we should be doing as much now. Where has the protest an objections gone? Same policies same mistakes different names. Go Team!!!
no "chinese" this christmas please...
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thats what i thought. guess they're our friends; they only knock our planes out of the sky n keep em.
its not like they crashed it into a building.....
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Is this somebody saying that they were wrong? Of course not! ;)
VRN
What I mean is that the article is serious, not a joke or a hoax. But, I think Sino-US military ties is a joke.
Stepping back, I think this article is a bit sensationalist in a way. It is typical of a pattern that takes place in the press saying US-China ties are bad, then they're good again, then bad again.
So we get articles like this when there will be a high level meeting saying "ties resume".
But in reality they never really ended and they sensationalize the "thinking" within the administration, making it sound more dramatic than I'm sure it is and also I think distort the thinking in the Pentagon.
Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.
And the article clearly states there will be no military manuevers. It's not like he is selling them military secrets like your buddy Clinton did...like him, you Bush bashers never miss a stroke.
Bushbots, indeed....hmmph!
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