China head warns Rice on Taiwan
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has held talks in China on the final leg
of her six-nation Asian tour.
President Hu Jintao told Ms Rice that its new law designed to limit Taiwan's
independence ambitions promoted "peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits".
Washington has opposed the move, but Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, whom she also
met on Sunday, told her he hoped the US would respect the law.
The US also hopes to persuade China to help curb North Korean nuclear plans.
The Bush administration wants China to do more to force North Korea to halt its
nuclear programme and come back to the negotiating table.
Ms Rice will hold more talks in Beijing on Monday.
Pyongyang pressure
Last month, Pyongyang pulled out of six-party talks hosted by China on the
issue.
But China says it has limited influence and the US should be more flexible.
"We need to resolve this issue, it cannot go on forever," said Ms Rice, before
her arrival in Beijing.
It is a commonly held belief outside China that it holds the key to North Korea
, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Beijing.
The logic is simple, he says - without Chinese grain, oil and coal, North
Korea's economy would collapse in a matter of weeks.
The US secretary of state would like to see China using those levers to get the
North Koreans back to the table and negotiating an end to their nuclear weapons
programme.
Taiwan balance
Ms Rice met President Hu in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Sunday.
The US has made no secret of its opposition to the new Chinese law on Taiwan,
which does not exclude force to achieve an eventual reunification with the
island Beijing considers a renegade province.
"We hope the United States won't send any wrong signal to the Taiwan splittist
forces," the president was quoted as telling Ms Rice.
Before arriving in China, Ms Rice said that the United States would maintain
and modernise its own forces in the Pacific to ensure the military balance
would be maintained.
The US is Taiwan's biggest supplier of arms.
EU concerns
Before setting off for Beijing, Ms Rice visited the South Korean capital, Seoul
, where she expressed concern over rising Chinese military power and criticised
the European Union for its plans to lift an arms embargo.
At a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, she
said the EU "should do nothing to contribute to a circumstance in which Chinese
military modernisation draws on European technology".
The EU imposed the embargo after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Last week's annual session of the Chinese parliament approved a 12.6% in
military spending this year.
"There are concerns about the rise of Chinese military spendings, and
potentially Chinese military power and its increasing sophistication," said
Condoleezza Rice.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4365409.stm
Published: 2005/03/20 14:21:59 GMT
c BBC MMV
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