Russia And China Boost Ties, Warn U.S. Over Taiwan

MOSCOW, Mar 1, 2000 -- (Reuters) Russia and China reaffirmed their commitment to building a strategic partnership in world affairs on Tuesday and warned the United States against interfering over Beijing's threats to use force against Taiwan.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan arrived in Moscow on Monday for the second set of high-level talks between the two countries in three months.

He met his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, and was due to hold talks with Acting President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

After what Tang described as "fruitful" and longer than planned talks, the two ministers signed a series of minor agreements and said the work to form a strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing was progressing smoothly.

"We achieved a lot of important mutual understanding on all the topics we discussed: bilateral ties and urgent international and regional issues," Tang told reporters at a news briefing.

"The talks reflected a positive shift in deepening and extending the content of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership." The ministers did not go into detail.

Moscow and Beijing have joined forces in building a vague alliance aimed at counterbalancing U.S. domination in the international arena. The United States has dismissed the drive.

"The Russians want cash, the Chinese want military equipment. It is a relationship of convenience," U.S. ambassador to China, Joseph Prueher, said in Washington on Monday.

RUSSIA AND CHINA SEE EYE-TO-EYE ON TAIWAN

Russia's military sales to China hit the headlines this month when China's first Russian-built guided missile destroyer passed through the Taiwan Straits.

The picture of the battleship featured on the front page of the Chinese army daily which last week urged Taiwan to start reunification or face invasion.

Answering a question about possible U.S. military intervention if Beijing did invade, both ministers blasted the idea, saying Taiwan was part of China and its domestic affair.

"We are against any third-party interference...especially by the means of extending one's military presence in the region," Ivanov said.

Tang said Washington's stance on Taiwan was key to improving U.S. relations with China which he said had recently seen "rains and storms". He also reaffirmed China's support to Russia's military operation in separatist Chechnya, a rare nod of approval amid a barrage of international criticism.

Beijing also sees eye-to-eye with Moscow in opposing a proposed U.S. weapons system which would breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=139238

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 02, 2000

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Thank-you, Carl, for your tireless work in providing the details to the real Y2K stories!

What a future we face! A world who hates us for all the right reasons, and we an ignorant population of multiculturalists hoping to be unified when the time is right.

-- Okie Dan (brendan@theshop.net), March 06, 2000.