Jiang criticizes U.S. pressure on Israel
Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Friday, April 14, 2000
JERUSALEM [MENL] -- Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who appears to have
cancelled a visit to Israeli defense industries, has criticized U.S.
insistence that Israel halt arms sales to Beijing.
Jiang's veiled criticism came during a state dinner. "With the collapse
of the centuries-long colonialist system and the end of half a century of
Cold War, it has become increasingly difficult for hegemonism and power
politics to go on and for the very few big powers or blocs of big powers to
monopolize international affairs and control the fate of other countries,"
Jiang said.
Jiang continued his visit to Israel on Thursday with a tour of the Yad
Vashem Holocaust memorial. Earlier, China and Israel signed agreements on
education and industrial technology research and development.
China has never acknowledged that it buys weapons from Israel. But
officials said Beijing reserves the right to buy weapons from anybody.
Officials said Jiang's visit to Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd., Lod,
was dropped from his public schedule after President Bill Clinton and many
in Congress complained of the Israeli sale of an airborne early-warning
system to Beijing. IAI's Elta Electronics Industries manufactures the
Phalcon system.
President Ezer Weizman echoed the assessment of Israeli officials that
the U.S. pressure regarding the Phalcon deal would not jeopardize relations
with Beijing. "Israel gives great weight to its relations with China and
sees a wide basis for further cooperation in the fields of economics,
agriculture, science, medicine and culture," Weizman said.
Israeli officials have complained that the Clinton administration waited
for three years until it protested the Phalcon deal. They said Prime
Minister Ehud Barak urged Clinton in his meeting on Tuesday in Washington
not to press the issue.
"There cannot be a situation where every time there is a little movement
toward the interests of Israel someone will give an order and we'll obey,"
Foreign Minister David Levy said.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said the United States expressed
concern as early as 1996 over the Phalcon deal. "This might be the most
visible and public objection to the sale recently, perhaps, with Secretary
Cohen in Israel. But our position has been consistent for this three-
plus-year period," Rear Admiral Craig Quigley said.
Quigley said the United States cannot provide Israel assurances that
other U.S. allies, such as Britain and France, would provide similar
technology to China. "I don't think we could offer those assurances," he
said. "It would kind of start the process over again."
In a related development, the U.S. publication Aviation Week reports
that Israel plans to develop three types of long-range missiles and two
types of anti-ballistic missile Unmanned Aerial Vehicles over the next
decade. This includes the Python 5 as well as another air-to-air missile
with a longer range. A third missile is being designed to strike ballistic
missile launchers.
Israel has already begun discussions of procuring 50 F-22s, the new
fighter planned for deployment in the U.S. air force. The magazine said the
F-22 will be delivered to Israel by 2007.
Friday, April 14, 2000
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