-Caveat Lector- You don';t get up one morning and just say your no longer a communist! Once a communist always a communist! - Bill WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Russia and China forge pact against 'Star Wars' By Damien McElroy in Beijing, David Wastell in Washington and Craig Nelson in Moscow (Filed: 15/07/2001) CHINA and Russia will strengthen their alliance against America's accelerated plans for a missile defence system when President Jiang Zemin arrives in Moscow today for talks with Vladimir Putin, his host and counterpart. As the Pentagon begins assessing the results of last night's missile defence test over the Pacific, the first for almost a year, the Russian and Chinese leaders are preparing to sign a new "friendship" pact to cement their joint effort to contain America's growing global power. The high point of the summit will be a signing ceremony for the new anti- Western accord, the Good Neighbourly Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation, which might have been drawn up in the heyday of the old Sino-Soviet alliance. Although the new treaty is universally described as "bland" by Western diplomats in the Chinese capital, it is symbolic of the warmer ties that Russia and China have forged in recent years over their shared resentment of America's dominant superpower role. China is deeply opposed to President George W. Bush's plans for a "Star Wars" missile shield, which would render its small arsenal of nuclear missiles obsolete. In his second meeting with Mr Putin in a month, Mr Jiang will press the Russian leader to continue opposing missile defence and to resist American blandishments to scrap or amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. Their meeting was given fresh urgency by last week's Pentagon announcement of an expanded missile defence test programme, starting with the attempted interception of a missile over the Pacific in the early hours of this morning. Mr Bush has given the go-ahead for preparations to build underground silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, to house a battery of test interceptor rockets, which could also be used for emergency defence purposes by 2004. Mr Bush will resume talks with Mr Putin, first started at a meeting in Slovenia last month, at next weekend's Group of Eight meeting of the world's strongest economic powers, plus Russia, in Genoa, Italy. Bush administration officials hope that Mr Putin will, in the end, agree to missile defence as part of a "new strategic framework" between the two countries. Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, said: "We need to move past where we are with the ABM treaty to something that more properly reflects the new relationship with Russia." Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, said he believed that Russia would agree to such an arrangement - but that if it did not, America would give the required six months' notice before breaching the treaty. Beijing is worried that Mr Putin will eventually agree to a compromise with Mr Bush and assent to the system's deployment, leaving China isolated in its attempt to block it. According to one diplomat in Beijing, Mr Jiang is growing frustrated at Mr Putin's proclivity for "telling lots of different people what they want to hear". The missile defence test scheduled for this morning was due to involve the launch of a trial interceptor rocket from a remote atoll on the Marshall Islands, to see whether it could destroy a long-range missile with a dummy warhead launched from California. Two of the previous three interceptor tests failed, most recently last July when the "kill vehicle" failed to separate from the booster rocket. Pentagon officials, however, stressed that whatever the result of the test, a further nine have been scheduled over the next few months; even a failure would provide "valuable data" for the defence programme. Moscow and Beijing would appear to share several defence and strategic interests. Russia wants to preserve its nuclear deterrent while China is developing one - hence their opposition to the missile defence shield. Both are also eager to combat what they view as the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in central Asia. Each side fears that successful insurgencies there will embolden separatist minorities inside their own borders. China's People's Liberation Army has also emerged as one of the biggest customers for Russia's arms industry, with contracts worth more than £1 billion this year. Powerful tensions beneath the surface, however, mean that Russia remains sufficiently distrustful of China to restrict most arms sales to obsolete systems or defensive technology. Analysts say the renewed amiability could easily turn sour. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former American National Security Adviser, said: "The friendship treaty is just a piece of paper, with a bunch of empty-headed geopoliticians on both sides thinking they're pulling off a coup. It's kind of comical. It changes nothing on the ground." The Slavic mistrust of China and Asia that stretches back to the 13th-century Mongol invasion is rising in Russia. Old fears are escalating, especially in Siberia and the Russian Far East, as Chinese migrants stream across the border in search of arable land and economic opportunities. Some Russian analysts fear that Mr Putin's attempt to forge an alliance with Beijing may only highlight Russia's deficiencies: they would prefer stronger links with Europe and America. Given that China's economy is eight times Russia's and the country is 10 times more populous, Moscow would be as much a junior partner in any long-term alliance with the East as it would with the West. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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