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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (2781)	3/11/2004 2:13:05 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6370

China tempered criticism on Iraq and now reaping benefits BEIJING: As US and British tanks rumbled into Iraq, fellow UN Security Council member China tempered criticism of Washington and London and is now muscling in on lucrative contracts in the rebuilding process. It sat on the fence for months in the lead up to the invasion before finally taking a firmer anti-war stance alongside France, Russia and Germany. Advertisement But it was never as vocal in its opposition as Paris, Moscow or Berlin, and as one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council it had the right to use its veto powers, but never did. Beijing had long enjoyed friendly relations with Iraq, but was also keen to maintain ties with the United States, which have improved significantly in recent years following a rocky period. Its lower key approach appears to have paid off. While Beijing has steadfastly refused to deploy troops to Iraq, unlike neighbouring Japan and South Korea, it has offered the country humanitarian assistance, pledging 25 million dollars towards Iraq's rebuilding at a donor conference in Madrid last October. And last month it indicated it was prepared to write-off a big part of the estimated 5.8 billion dollars owed to it by the former Saddam regime. In return, it wants lucrative reconstruction contracts, particulary in the oil, power and infrastructure fields where Chinese companies did business before the US-led attack. It is starting to reap those rewards, avoiding inclusion on a list of countries the US barred from bidding for rebuilding work because they opposed the war, like France, Germany and Russia. So far, two Chinese companies have secured deals, both in the telecommunications sector. It has not been plain sailing though, facing resistence from the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, according to Dong Baoping, project manager with Zhongxing Telecom Co (ZTE) which last month became the first Chinese company to seal a post-war contract. Dong said the Coalition Provisional Authority seemed to want all contracts to go to American companies. "On the one hand, the Iraqis themselves wished to continue working with China but on the other the Coalition Provisional Authority seemed to spare no effort in its desire to see all the contracts go to American companies," Dong was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency. ZTE finally inked a five-million dollar deal to supply Iraq with telecommunications equipment after six months of negotiations. Huawei Technolgies has also won a deal worth 10 million dollars to provide GSM cellphone network equipment. Despite concerns about security, China last month sent its first diplomats back to Baghdad to reopen their damaged embassy, partly in an effort to secure more work for Chinese companies. Among the 13-member team were officials from the commerce ministry, as well as foreign affairs staff. "There have been many changes over the past year. We have noticed that in the political and economic situation, there has been some recovery and progress," China's foreign ministry said this month. "But the security situation in Iraq is still worrying. "We hope the Iraq situation can be stabilized as soon as possible and that Iraq can embark on the peaceful road of reconstruction as soon as possible and power can be returned to the Iraqi people at an early date for its people to run their own country." During Saddam's reign, commerce between the two countries thrived. China was the second-largest arms supplier to Iraq in the 1980s and 1990s, accounting for 18 percent of the Middle Eastern country's weapons imports, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank. - AFP channelnewsasia.com