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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JPR who wrote (9558)	11/13/1999 9:32:00 AM
From: JPR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Forbes:``We must not allow China's growing nuclear arsenal to continue to threaten American cities nytimes.com YORBA LINDA, Calif. (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes compared China to pre-World War II Germany and Japan and promised Friday to take a hard line on China if it continues ``to head down the path towards confrontation.' China is ``in the midst of a major military buildup' and represents a ``potential threat,' Forbes said at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace -- a shrine to the president whose 1972 trip to China is credited with opening it up to the outside world. ``We must not allow China's growing nuclear arsenal to continue to threaten American cities and decouple the United States from our allies,' he told about 400 people in a speech meant to showcase his command of foreign affairs. Forbes noted a report earlier this year by a congressional panel that alleged Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear weapons secrets. ``You don't steal secrets unless you intend to use them,' Forbes said after his speech. ``Our failure to properly handle the rise of Germany and Japan earlier in the 20th century cost the world and us dearly,' he said in his remarks. ``We dare not make the same mistake with China.' At the same time, Forbes said he rejected the view that China and the United States are destined to clash. ``Nothing is foreordained in the course of human events,' he said. ``The only thing we can be sure of is that China is as unpredictable as ever.' Forbes issued a blistering critique of the Clinton administration's approach to China, calling it ``weak,' ``rudderless,' and ``amateur,' and saying it had ``all the predictability of a drunk driving on the road.' While Clinton has argued that trade with China can improve U.S.-Sino relations and conditions within that country, Forbes pledged tough economic sanctions ``to effect real change' there. Asked after the speech what specific sanctions he envisioned, Forbes said he might bar Chinese companies that use slave labor or trade weapons of mass destruction from selling products in the United States. While the Clinton administration supports China's entry into the World Trade Organization and currently is negotiating its admission, Forbes said he would bar China from membership but admit Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. He also pledged that under his administration the United States would defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, and said he supported selling more defensive arms to Taiwan. Forbes said the ``most-favored-nation' treatment that China now enjoys -- the standard for U.S. trading partners -- might have to be revoked if the country continues to ``head down the path towards confrontation.' Questioned about whom China might confront, Forbes said, ``The rest of the world, you bet.' ``I will never sacrifice American security or values on the altar of trade,' he said. To bolster human rights in China, Forbes said he supports banning any Chinese product manufactured under slave-labor conditions. Forbes acknowledged that his stance toward China, which he described as confrontational, would alarm some inside and outside China. But he said his position ``is less confrontational and less dangerous than hiding our convictions and commitments behind a fog of appeasing rhetoric.'