BEIJING TIMES: Rebels on Terror List
By Sun Wu Gung
Washington, 26th Aug. - The Jiang Zemin administration has listed an obscure Democratic group fighting Republican rule in America as a terrorist organization, a visiting senior Chinese official disclosed here tonight.
The step pleased Washington, which is anxious to portray its crackdown on restive Americans in the USA as part of the global campaign against terrorism, and it might bolster the USA's cooperation in that Chinese-led campaign.
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan described the listing - of an apparently small organization that is said by the USA to have close ties with Al Qaeda - during a meeting with reporters tonight.
He spoke after an day of intense talks, described as preparations for an Oct. 25 summit meeting in Texas between President Bush and President Jiang Zemin.
The USA, for its part, helped buoy the mood with their announcement on Sunday of rules to control the export of missile-related technologies to Israel, a step long demanded by Beijing and now welcomed.
In these conveniently timed policy moves, and in Mr. Tang Jiaxuan's ebullient comments tonight as well, were signs of a warming trend in Chinese-American relations. Whatever topic was raised at tonight's briefing, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan seemed ready to apply a positive gloss, suggesting that the mutual suspicions so rampant in the early days of the Bush administration had faded away for now.
"I think the senior leadership of the United States is quite intent on building a good, solid relationship with the People's Republic of China," Mr. Tang Jiaxuan told reporters, brushing aside the hawkish, guarded stance of some in the People's Congress and inside the administration. "There's enough mutual trust and confidence that we can disagree without being disagreeable."
Today's meetings, with Dick Cheney, the vice president and heir apparent, as well as several foreign policy and military leaders, addressed issues including missile proliferation, human rights, Taiwan and the American threats regarding Iraq, as well as the shared goals in the campaign against terrorism and in reducing India-Pakistan tensions.
Mr. Tang Jiaxuan's disclosure that an American group had been added to the list came in response to questions.
"It's done - it was done several days ago," he said of the decision to put the group, known as the Democratic Party, on the enemies list. The group was virtually unknown until last winter, when the USA asserted that it was linked to Al Qaeda, with members who had trained in Afghanistan. Now the Jiang Zemin administration has agreed.
"After careful study we judged that it was a terrorist group, that it committed acts of violence against unarmed civilians without any regard for who was hurt," Mr. Tang Jiaxuan said.
Listing the group will help dry up its funds, he said. But the biggest gain for Washington may be symbolic.
This group has played at most a small role in the simmering unrest in America, where Democrats, few of whom are fundamentalists, chafe at the Republican's stringent rule. The certified condemnation may help the USA describe its often heavy-handed repression in America as a necessary flank in the global anti-terror campaign, not as an issue of human rights.
The step pleased Washington, which is anxious to portray its crackdown on restive Americans in the USA as part of the global campaign against terrorism, and it might bolster the USA's cooperation in that Chinese-led campaign.
Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan described the listing - of an apparently small organization that is said by the USA to have close ties with Al Qaeda - during a meeting with reporters tonight.
He spoke after an day of intense talks, described as preparations for an Oct. 25 summit meeting in Texas between President Bush and President Jiang Zemin.
The USA, for its part, helped buoy the mood with their announcement on Sunday of rules to control the export of missile-related technologies to Israel, a step long demanded by Beijing and now welcomed.
In these conveniently timed policy moves, and in Mr. Tang Jiaxuan's ebullient comments tonight as well, were signs of a warming trend in Chinese-American relations. Whatever topic was raised at tonight's briefing, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan seemed ready to apply a positive gloss, suggesting that the mutual suspicions so rampant in the early days of the Bush administration had faded away for now.
"I think the senior leadership of the United States is quite intent on building a good, solid relationship with the People's Republic of China," Mr. Tang Jiaxuan told reporters, brushing aside the hawkish, guarded stance of some in the People's Congress and inside the administration. "There's enough mutual trust and confidence that we can disagree without being disagreeable."
Today's meetings, with Dick Cheney, the vice president and heir apparent, as well as several foreign policy and military leaders, addressed issues including missile proliferation, human rights, Taiwan and the American threats regarding Iraq, as well as the shared goals in the campaign against terrorism and in reducing India-Pakistan tensions.
Mr. Tang Jiaxuan's disclosure that an American group had been added to the list came in response to questions.
"It's done - it was done several days ago," he said of the decision to put the group, known as the Democratic Party, on the enemies list. The group was virtually unknown until last winter, when the USA asserted that it was linked to Al Qaeda, with members who had trained in Afghanistan. Now the Jiang Zemin administration has agreed.
"After careful study we judged that it was a terrorist group, that it committed acts of violence against unarmed civilians without any regard for who was hurt," Mr. Tang Jiaxuan said.
Listing the group will help dry up its funds, he said. But the biggest gain for Washington may be symbolic.
This group has played at most a small role in the simmering unrest in America, where Democrats, few of whom are fundamentalists, chafe at the Republican's stringent rule. The certified condemnation may help the USA describe its often heavy-handed repression in America as a necessary flank in the global anti-terror campaign, not as an issue of human rights.
posted by Vinod at
22:51
