Author: Reuters
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: November 30, 2001
URL: http://us.f100.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=bo4db43hiknhk
Washington, November 30: The United
States, underscoring a post-September 11 pledge to defeat terrorism, will
hang tough in high-level talks with China on Friday and renew a demand
that the Chinese curb missile cooperation with Pakistan, a senior US official
said.
US Under Secretary of State John
Bolton and Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya are expected to hold
the most extensive senior-level non-proliferation talks between their countries
since President George W. Bush took office in January. The September 11
attacks on New York and Washington have added urgency to the goal of halting
the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons that could fall
into the hands of extremists.
Expectations are low, however, that
Washington and Beijing can reach an agreement that would justify the lifting
of US sanctions that have delayed the export of American communications
satellites to China. China asked for Friday's meeting. Bush told Chinese
President Jiang Zemin in Shanghai last month that "non-proliferation is
a serious issue," another official told Reuters.
"'You've got to deal with it. You
can't have the kind of relationship with the United States that you want
until we deal with it,'" the official said, summarising Bush's message.
The White House denies any advance knowledge of what Wang may say.
WASHINGTON WILL BE LISTENING
"We don't have any reason to believe
the Chinese position has changed," the senior official said on Thursday,
adding: "But we'll be listening... We'll be interested to hear what they
say." As for the American position, he said: "We've told them before. We
haven't changed in five months. It's still the same." If there is time,
the United States may also use the meeting to voice its concern about China's
biological weapons programme.
China's priorities are to talk about
lifting the sanctions and to learn the status of US missile defence negotiations
with Russia, the senior US Official said. The US preference would be to
deal with Beijing's "proliferation behaviour" across a range of weapons
of mass destruction and their delivery systems, he said. But, "frankly,
if they can't address the missile sanction issue, then there is not a lot
of point in talking about other aspects (of proliferation) at this stage,"
he added.
