The move, foreshadowed in the September issue of the party's Digest of Party Construction, indicates a bold attempt by Jiang and his supporters to entrench their people in key posts at the party's 16th congress in 2002. The United States has ended its suspension of military cooperation with India and said yes, but ever-suspicious China has sent its regrets. Analysts in New Delhi say China's refusal to take part in February's five-day International Fleet Review reflects Beijing's unhappiness at India's attempts to develop naval cooperation with other Asian nations.
China is believed to be keen to secure a strategic outlet on the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile, the U.S. will be sending ships to India for the first time since Washington suspended military cooperation in 1998 in response to India's nuclear tests. Neighbouring Pakistan wasn't invited. Russia, the main supplier of arms to India, was invited but hasn't yet accepted. Despite their commitment to curb opium production this year, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and the country's drug lords have stockpiled more than 220 tons of heroin in the north for dispatch to Europe. Russian and American satellites have been monitoring the transport of raw opium from producing areas in southern Afghanistan to laboratories in the north, where it's converted into heroin and stored in heavily guarded warehouses.