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China Defends Sino-Russian Military Cooperation
Beijing (AFP) February 15, 2000 - China Tuesday defended its military cooperation with Russia, while strongly attacking US efforts to build space-based weapons like its proposed national missile defense. "As a sovereign country China has the right to take measures to enhance its own defense capabilities," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told journalists. "China and Russia indeed have some cooperation in the military field with the purpose of increasing one's own national defense and to safeguard one's own territorial integrity," he said. "As the two largest neighbors in the world, to develop friendly relations in all fields, including the military field, not only serves the interest of the two countries but is also conducive to stability, peace and development in the region." Zhu was directly responding to a question concerning China's purchase of two Sovermenny-class modern Russian destroyers and the tensions that the high-tech war machines would bring to the Taiwan Straits ahead of the islands March 18 presidential elections. The first of the two destroyers sailed through the Taiwan Strait last Saturday in an eerie reminder of China's massive amphibious war games and ballistic missile tests that preceded Taiwan's first-ever presidential elections in 1996. China reportedly signed a contract to purchase the destroyers in 1997 as a response to Washington's dispatch of two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Strait to monitor the 1996 military exercises, a move which further heightened tensions in the strait. Zhu further defended China and Russia's joint stance against the development of outer space weapons and in an apparent condemnation of the proposed US national missile defense, warned that the development of space-based weapons would lead to a new arms race. "It is noteworthy that some individual countries ... in pursuit of military advantages and strategic advantages have all along been planning and attempting actions to control outer space," Zhu said without directly naming the US. "If we don't stop them from doing so in the near future it is possible that outer space will be weaponized and even lead to an arms race in outerspace," he said. The US has cited ballistic missile threats to its national security, notably from "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iraq, as the reasons for its attempts to develop a missile defense system capable of shooting down incoming ballistic missiles. Russia and China jointly opposed such a system as a violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in a joint statement issued at a summit between former Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin last December in Beijing. Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. CommunityEmail This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Space
Satellite Launch To Boost DTH In India
Calcutta, India (SPX) Dec 28, 2005The successful launch Thursday of India's heaviest satellite from spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana may have boosted the country's space research efforts to yet another level, but it has also lifted the spirits of at least three Direct-To-Home televisions broadcasters, one of which has been waiting for years to launch its services in India. |
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