Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La Cina cerca alleati per rompere l'accerchiamento USA (inglese)

Chinese leaders seek allies against US encirclement
By John Chan
17 May 2002
Last month’s tour by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to Germany, Nigeria,
Tunisia, Libya and Iran, and the visit of Premier Zhu Rongji to Turkey,
Egypt and Kenya, highlighted Beijing’s concerns over the Bush
administration’s “war on terrorism”. While ostensibly trade missions,
the tours indicated that Chinese leaders are seeking to develop
alliances with the European Union and others to resist American
domination over the resources of Central Asia, the Middle East and the
Pacific.
Washington’s actions since September 11 have resulted in a virtual
military encirclement of China and undermined a protracted effort by
Beijing to expand its influence in Central Asia and secure access to
rich deposits of oil and gas. The Chinese-inspired “Shanghai Five”
group, which was aimed at forging close military, economic and political
ties between China, Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian
republics, has effectively collapsed. US troops and warplanes are now
based or have fly-over rights in its member states of Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Uzbekistan. The Russian government, with which China had signed a
“strategic partnership”, has adapted to the new circumstances and is
collaborating more closely with the US. The US is also developing
military ties with India, China’s regional rival.
On the Korean peninsula, where China had been encouraging a
rapprochement between North and South in the hope of benefiting
economically and politically, the inclusion of North Korea in Bush’s
“axis of evil” has pushed tensions to the brink of war. The Bush
administration has increased weapons sales to Taiwan and restated its
blanket guarantee to use whatever force necessary—including nuclear
weapons—to defeat any attempt by China to force the island to reunify
with the mainland. Of even greater concern in Beijing, Washington is
actively encouraging the remilitarisation of Japanese imperialism with
the aim of using Tokyo to assist in putting pressure on China. Elsewhere
in the Pacific, US forces have moved back into the Philippines, with
which China has disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Washington has also bolstered its military ties with Australia and
Thailand, overshadowing China’s overtures to these US allies in recent
years.
Within this context, the choice of countries visited by Jiang had
considerable significance. The visit to Germany followed in the wake of
confused signals from the EU that it would, to some extent, resist US
ambitions being pursued under the banner of a “war on terrorism”. Some
EU leaders have openly opposed a US war on Iraq and, while taking no
action, were critical of the tacit US backing for the Israeli invasion
of the West Bank. The main European nations have also strengthened their
relations with Iran and North Korea this year—the other states in the
“axis of evil”. In all these countries, Europe has economic and
strategic interests that do not coincide with those of the US.
In Berlin from April 8 to 13, Jiang Zemin attempted to align China with
the layers of the EU establishment that are calling for the UN to block
the US threats of a unilateral war on Iraq. He told Der Spiegel on April
8: “Like Germany and most other states, we want to solve the Iraq
question under the conditions of a UN resolution.” The same day, Jiang
told the Welt am Sonntag: “We all want to fight terrorism. But the
states involved in the fight against terror each have their own specific
viewpoint.”
On April 9, following meetings with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
and President Johannes Rau, Jiang called for “Israel to comprehensively
withdraw from the Palestinian territories and to implement the relevant
UN Security Council resolutions.” He declared China’s support for a
permanent German seat on the UN Security Council and expressed his hope
“the EU and Germany will play a more active role in the Middle East
issue [the Israel-Palestinian conflict]”.
Jiang Zemin left no doubt as to the benefits on offer for European
corporate interests from a closer EU relationship with China. He urged
German corporations and banks to “actively participate” in the energy
project in the country’s west. The week before Jiang’s visit to Berlin,
Brussels sent EU External Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten to
Beijing to deliver a 40 million euro grant to assist China’s plans to
develop a 4,200 kilometre West-East natural gas pipeline from its
Central Asian Xinjiang province to Shanghai. Patten, who was labeled a
“whore” by Beijing when he was the British governor of Hong Kong, was
welcomed with smiles and handshakes by senior Chinese officials.
Although the amount of money he brought was small, it indicated the EU’s
interest in China’s Central Asian energy and economic plans.
While only the West-East pipeline is currently under construction, a
number of oil companies have investigated the possibilities of
constructing a land “energy bridge”, linking China and the Korean
peninsula with the largely-untapped resources of Russia’s Far East and
the Central Asian republics and, ultimately, to Iran and the Persian
Gulf. China, which is rapidly becoming of the largest importers of
energy, is seeking to become less dependent on oil shipped through the
Middle Eastern and South East Asian sea-lanes that are vulnerable to
blockade by the US Navy. The potential profits flowing from the project
have attracted the involvement of major oil companies such as BP Amoco.
Modern day “Silk Road”
Also attracting the interest of transnational corporations is the
possibility that a byproduct of the energy projects could be viable land
trade links—a modern day “Silk Road”—between Europe and East Asia. On
April 19, the Financial Times reported the findings of a European think
tank operated by the international railway union (Union Internationale
des Chemins de Fer—UIC) that rail links between Europe to Asia would
provide “a cheaper and more reliable service” than sea-freight within 10
years. Linking from different parts of Europe, rail freight could
traverse Russia and Mongolia to Beijing and, through North Korea, to
Seoul. Other lines could run south connecting with Shanghai. UIC
director Paul Veron commented: “Land bridges instead of sea bridges are
something very realistic.” The development of advanced road networks
through Central Asia and China’s underdeveloped west would facilitate
road freight as well.
The offer of trade and energy links with China, as part of closer
political relations, was the focus of Jiang’s visit to Iran from April
16 to 18. Jiang signed six new agreements with the Iranian regime over
oil, gas, petrochemicals, trade, transportation and information
technology, evoking the historical links between China and Iran along
the “Silk Road more than 2,000 years ago”.
Jiang Zemin openly repudiated the US stance against the Iranian regime,
telling the country’s parliamentary spokesman Mahdi Karroubi: “Our
opinion [on terrorism] is not the same as the United States”. Alongside
Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, who called on China to play “the
leading role” in opposing the US war plans in the Persian Gulf, Jiang
stated that “Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity should be
respected” and that the UN should act to reach agreements with Iraq and
lift sanctions. The Iranian regime, with justification, fears a US
assault on Iraq will be the prelude to increased US military threats and
pressure upon its borders.
Iran is becoming an important economic partner of China. It is already a
major supplier of oil, with China-Iran trade doubling between 1999 and
2001 to $US3.3 billion due to increased Chinese oil imports. In the
longer term, China’s major oil companies have ambitions to invest in
Iranian oil and gas fields and feasibility studies have been conducted
into gas pipelines extending from Iran and Turkmenistan to western
China.
Zhu Rongji’s coinciding visit to Turkey stressed China’s strategic
preoccupation with these plans. Following discussion with Turkish Prime
Minister Bulent Ecevit on April 16, Zhu called for China and Turkey to
“jointly combat” the separatist movement among the Turkic-speaking
Uiygur ethnic minority in Xinjiang province—the geographical linchpin of
China’s Eurasian ambitions. Beijing has intensified its military and
police operations in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, on the pretext
of crushing “terrorism”. Beijing’s major fear is a scenario similar to
the war on Yugoslavia in 1999, with the major powers backing ethnic
separatists in Xinjiang, as NATO backed the Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army, in order to split the resource-rich province from Chinese control.
Some of the main Uiygur exile organisations operate from Turkey. The
motives for Turkey revoking support for the Uiygur groups are both its
own potential economic gains from strengthened EU relations with China,
and its fears of the US exploiting ethnic-based movements in pursuit of
its agenda. Ankara has publicly questioned a US war on Iraq, fearing
Washington may arm and support Kurdish forces in northern Iraq opposed
to Saddam Hussein, thereby encouraging Kurdish separatism within
Turkey’s borders.
China’s efforts to break out of US encirclement will no doubt become
further grist to the mill for the anti-China lobby in Washington—more
evidence of Beijing’s “hostility” and “global ambitions”. While at
present Sino-US relations have the appearance of calm, the naming of
China’s ally North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” indicates that a
wing in the Bush administration is pushing for a confrontation with
Beijing. Another possible pretext was supplied in recent months by the
CIA, which has accused China of supplying missile technology to Libya
and Iran and assisting them to develop “weapons of mass destruction”.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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World Socialist Web Site (
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una cozzaglia di cavolate!!!!
la Cina é l'ultimo Impero alieno al mondo. Con la riunificazione
dell'Occidente con la Russia 3/4 del mondo sono d'accordo, manca l'ultimo
1/4, i cinesi.
I cinesi, non fessi, l'hanno capito, e, a modo loro, cercano il contatto con
l'Occidente.
Che in Europa poi trovino terreno fertile per le a loro comode polemiche
ideologiche é deplorevole.
Sarebbe interessante una ricognizione per capire dove e quante bandiere con
il Ché vengono tutt'ora prodotte!
Matheus

 ha
scritto nel
Cosa siete? Information guerrilla con nome mascherato?
Ad'I

 wrote in message
news:ac5qlh$ktm$
4...@lacerta.tiscalinet.it

Vista la situazione dell'NG, mi conviene dire per prima cosa che 
non sono dalla parte nè dello stato isrealiano nè di quello 
palestinese !
:)
JAL



Scusami l'intromissione, e ti concedo di schierarti ;-)
Unicamente volevo accertarmi dato l'assonanza dei nomi, che non avesti
niente a che fare con un certo gruppo di pseudorivoluzionari, i cui
deliranti messaggi vengono adesso rilanciati dai vari neonazisti su altri
ng.
Riscusandomi e salutando:
Ad'I