China: Washington must abandon 'perverted' ways

The following is an edited transcript of answers given by Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan to questions posed at a news conference on day two of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Q: Is there a connection between China's plans to increase military spending by 17.7% and its concerns about a US sponsored Theater Missile Defense program?

I do not see any direct link with the US program for NMD development. Indeed, over the years, in order to ensure the financing of China's modernization drive, we have adhered to the strict control of our defense spending.

And this year, it is an objective fact that the defense budget in China has increased by a fairly big margin.

This can be traced to the following two major factors. Firstly, with continued progress in China's economic development and with the continuous rise in living standards in China's major cities and among rural residents, particularly with the rising per capita income levels among people in China, it is most natural that there is the need for us to maintain the necessary income for our servicemen.

Secondly, this defense increase comes from the need to modernize our national defense system and to introduce reforms to our military structures. So these factors have contributed to the relatively big rise in our defense spending.

In the meantime, however, I have to point out that although you might get the conclusion from just a couple of figures that China's defense spending has increased this year, still if you put China's defense budget in the context of the defense spending of other major countries of the world, you will realize that China's defense budget is the smallest.

Q: What is your response to allegations that China has been helping Iraq maintain communications of its anti-aircraft defense system?

The relevant agencies in China have carried out some serious investigations. The result of the investigation is that Chinese corporations and enterprises have not assisted Iraq in building the project of fiber optic cables used for air defense.

As is known to you, the Chinese government has always been very serious, very strict and always very responsible in implementing the relevant UN resolutions on Iraq.

The Chinese government has very clear cut provisions which have been reaffirmed to corporations and enterprises many times around China which prohibit any company and individual from engaging in any activities, economic activities or training activities which go against the UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq.

In other words all the enterprises and individuals in China must strictly abide by these resolutions, and so this time these provisions once again were reaffirmed to corporations nationwide. So indeed we in China have been very serious and responsible in this question, and we have a very good track record in the United Nations.

And indeed there is the question of why the United States side should all of the sudden put forward these questions. In this connection and in my view, I cannot but say that there might be another factor at work. Probably what was attempted is to divert the attention of the international community away from the unilateral bombing of Iraq by the United States and Britain.

Q: If the US Congress approves selling an Aegis weapons system to Taiwan, what effect will that have on US-Chinese relations?

The Taiwan question is a very sensitive and very important question.

In all frankness, what the United States has done on this question is adequate to show that now the United States factor is an important outside factor getting in the way of the peaceful reunification of the Chinese motherland.

If the United States side continues to fail to honor its commitments on this question, and if the United States side continues to insist on selling advanced weapons to Taiwan, including in particular the Aegis missile destroyer and the Pact three anti-missile systems, than that will send a very wrong message to the Taiwan authorities.

It will encourage a very small number of people in Taiwan and independence seekers to continue to engage in separatist activities.

It would only feed their arrogance and furthermore, that move by the United States will endanger China-United States relations, aggravate tensions across the Taiwan Straits, and it will not work in any interest of the United States itself.

The United States side should come to the recognition of the serious dangers involved, it should rein in its wild horse right on the side of its precipice.

On the question of Human Rights, we can see that the United States puts on a show in the Geneva Human Rights Commission almost every year. A number of days ago, the United States once again officially announced that it would table an anti-China draft resolution in Geneva this year.

In the meantime, it has also released some country specific Human Rights reports, involving China and quite a number of other countries. And so these documents released by the United States have mentioned more than one hundred developing countries by name, however these documents have not even one word mentioning the serious Human Rights problems that exist within the United States.

So what phenomenon can we call this?

To quote an old saying in Chinese, we might say that this is the most typical example of the case involving a county magistrate who can set peoples' houses on fire if he likes, but he does not permit the ordinary people even to use the fire to light their lamps.

And also this is the most typical example of the United States continued practice of double standards on the question of Human Rights.

Confrontation over Human Rights can lead nowhere. If the United States continues to go along this path, then I don't think it is possible for the United States to get any better outcome that it has gotten in the past.

We in china are firmly opposed to practicing double standards and politicizing the human rights question. In the same vein, we are firmly opposed to interference into other countries' internal affairs by making use of human rights.

What has happened in Hong Kong for more than 3 years after returning to the motherland has fully testified that the central peoples' government of China has never interfered in the affairs which fall within the autonomy of Hong Kong SAR.

The SAR government of Hong Kong has also adhered to administering Hong Kong's affairs in accordance with the Basic Law. This has made it possible for our Hong Kong compatriots to enjoy a peaceful and content life, and to fully enjoy human rights, democracy and freedoms.

So in total disregard of the facts of Hong Kong, the State Department's report, particularly the part concerning Hong Kong, is really making unwarranted charges against the human rights situation in Hong Kong.

So we would like to express our firm opposition and dissatisfaction. It has been our consistent proposition that there should be international cooperation on human rights. Specifically speaking, there should be dialogues and exchanges in the human rights area, which constitutes the right method for handling the existing problems and differences over human rights.

In conclusion, I would like to advise the United States side to get rid of its perverted ways on this question as soon as possible and return to the road of dialogue, which is the right path.

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