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Saturday, December 1, 2001 SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST Washington and Beijing seek to ease missile row AGENCIES The United States and China have launched a new bid to ease a row over Beijing's missile sales, as a senior Chinese envoy embarked on meetings with top officials including Secretary of State Colin Powell. The US had renewed a demand that the Chinese curb missile co-operation with Pakistan, a senior US official said. Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Guangya's programme included a short meeting with Mr Powell on Thursday, before more detailed and extensive discussions between US Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Mr Wang, US and Chinese sources said. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said both sides discussed non-proliferation and arms-controls issues. "In addition to those discussions, we'll also have discussions with his delegation on counter-terrorism co-operation and the situation in Afghanistan along with other issues of concern," Mr Boucher said. The September 11 attacks have added urgency to the goal of halting the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons that could fall into the hands of extremists. If there was time, the United States also hoped to use the meeting to voice concern about China's biological weapons programme. But expectations were low that Washington and Beijing could reach an agreement that would justify the lifting of US sanctions imposed on September 1 on a Chinese state-owned firm after the US accused China of funnelling missile technology to Pakistan. "We don't have any reason to believe the Chinese position has changed," the senior US official said. "But 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." China's priorities were 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. In private talks, China argued that sanctions should be waived in return for a new pledge that missile technology transfers would not take place and Beijing would finally carry out an old promise to tighten export controls. But the US administration lost patience. In the past two decades, China has promised six times not to transfer missiles and missile technology, yet has broken each pledge by arming Pakistan, Syria, North Korea and possibly Libya, according to US Senate and intelligence sources. China has denied the charges and Pakistan said it received no missile components. But the United States has refused to lift the sanctions, which have hit Chinese hopes of its satellites being launched on US rockets. ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
