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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ThirdEye who wrote (14081)	12/18/2001 2:19:42 PM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 281500

China warns Israel over Awacs news.bbc.co.uk China has warned Israel that its decision to cancel the sale of an advanced airborne radar system could hurt bilateral relations, unless a "satisfactory solution" is found. Israel bowed to American pressure in July last year and scrapped a $250m deal to sell China a Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control System (Awacs). "We hope the countries concerned can take responsibility and put forward solutions that the Chinese side is satisfied with, so as not to undermine relations between China and these certain countries," a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said. Speaking at a press briefing, Zhang Qiyue said she could not confirm Israeli press reports that said China was demanding $2bn compensation for the cancellation. Israeli officials also declined to confirm the figure. Military balance "We maintain that agreements or memoranda of understanding reached between state and state should be abided by," Ms Zhang said. "This is the basic norm in state-to-state relations." Israel said it has opened discussions with the Chinese Government to end the dispute. The United States put pressure on Israel to cancel the deal for fear that Beijing's purchase of the technology would upset the military balance between China and Taiwan. The Israeli Government gave in after the US Congress threatened to cut the $2.8bn it gives Israel annually if the deal went ahead.

To: ThirdEye who wrote (14081)	12/18/2001 9:56:13 PM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

This is overstated. The administration has been split from the beginning--hell, from before the beginning, as the neocon/realist splits were obvious well before the election, and were pointed out as such by some prescient observers--and continues to be split now. Some of the "hawks" cited in that piece are smart, serious people whose views can and should be taken into account. Some of them are smart and serious but ideologically extreme. And some (like Frank Gaffney, for example) are just egregious buffoons. Moreover, the positions of their opponents may not be what casual observers think. To take an important example, there are at least three positions on Iraq that are being taken seriously these days--containment/deterrence, regime-change-via-the-opposition-and-air-campaign, and regime-change-via-invasion--and the players do not necessarily line up where one might think. The coming months and years will be very interesting for American foreign and defense policy. At least as important as the hardliner/softliner split will be other divisions within the administration, such as smart-sane/stupid-insane, defense-reformer/status-quoist, and domestic-political-hack/national-security-professional. Those seriously interested in these issues, btw, really should subscribe to the magazine mentioned in the thread header, 'cause it continues to showcase the most serious argumentation on a broad range of foreign policy issues. It sticks somewhat close to the professional mainstream, as JohnM has pointed out, but there's a reason why the mainstream is where it is, and those who favor non-mainstream approaches (of any variety) would do well to consider why they are not broadly accepted--and what would have to change for them to be so. tb@softlinersmartsanereformerprofessional.com