美國國防部長的秘書 Donald H. Rumsfeld
已經針對美軍與中共軍隊的軍事聯盟做限制，因為根據過去柯林頓政府的經驗，中共對雙方的互惠，並不履行。中共對美軍坦率的透露相關軍武秘密，非常重視，而中共對中方內部的弱點亦常加以隱瞞，並透過軍方所屬的科技公司，向美國採購足以改裝武備的超級電腦與技術，柯林頓主政以來，美軍在中共軍武的善意互動，呈現美方單一方面的重大損失，而中共的計劃性高技術提昇，不斷來自蘇俄、以色列、歐盟各國的投注，美國亦同時自曝其短，造成中共軍備科技武器的重大突破，此階段已擁有足以抵抗美軍在亞洲勢力的初步成果。
Rumsfeld Limiting Military Contacts With the Chinese
June 4, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld has cut off virtually all of the Pentagon's contacts with
the Chinese armed forces in a move that is prompting concern among
China experts within the United States military establishment.
The Pentagon says that
it is conducting a case-by-case review of seminars, visits and other
contacts with China and that no sweeping decisions have been made.
But internal Pentagon
memoranda indicate that Mr. Rumsfeld is personally deciding which
contacts should be allowed with the Chinese and that he has rejected
an overwhelming majority of them.
Under Mr. Rumsfeld's policy,
no direct contact between American and Chinese military officers has
been authorized in recent months.
A trip to China by Vice
Adm. Paul Gaffney, the president of the United States National Defense
University, which had been scheduled to occur last week, was canceled.
And Chinese officers are
no longer being invited to seminars at the Asia- Pacific Center for
Security Studies in Honolulu, the Pentagon's primary research center
on security issues in that region.
Mr. Rumsfeld authorized
American officers to attend multinational seminars on relief operations
to which Chinese officers were also invited. But the defense secretary
issued specific guidance that the American officers were to "minimize
contact" with their Chinese counterparts at the April symposia,
according to a Pentagon memo obtained by The New York Times.
Under the new policy,
the United States is also no longer requesting port calls in Hong
Kong, requests that the Pentagon had previously made to reinforce
the territory's unique status.
Senior aides to Mr. Rumsfeld
said the decisions were intended to signal deep displeasure over China's
handling of the collision between a Chinese fighter and a United States
Navy EP-3E, which resulted in an 11- day detention for the crew, the
loss of the Chinese pilot and weeks of wrangling over the return of
the aircraft.
But even before the collision,
the Bush administration was taking a more skeptical approach toward
China, though it had maintained military-to-military ties. And it
is not clear how energetically the Pentagon will pursue contacts,
even once the dispute over the EP-3E, which remains on Hainan island
in China, is fully resolved.
"It
is not business as usual," a senior Pentagon official said. "The
Bush administration was going on the belief that the relationship
was not balanced and that China perhaps was obtaining more access
here than we were from our visits there. We were in the process of
reviewing this to try to strike a better balance when the April 1
collision occurred."
Mr. Rumsfeld's policy
worries some former and current United States officers. They argue
that an interchange gives the United States insight into Beijing's
thinking, develops contacts that may prove useful in the future and
contributes to deterrence by showing China the high caliber of the
United States military.
H. C. Stackpole III, the
retired three-star Marine general and Vietnam war hero who leads the
Pentagon-funded Asia-Pacific Security Center, said cutting off contacts
is counterproductive.
"I
think it ensures that the hard- liners in Beijing have ammunition
for an increased arms buildup," he said in an interview. "When
you have the kind of position we are taking right now, only one view
becomes prevalent. Those in China who do not wish to have the U.S.
as an enemy find their voices become muted."
Bernard Cole, known as
Bud, a professor at the National Defense University and a retired
navy captain, said China's penchant for secrecy about its armed forces
makes military exchanges a potentially valuable tool for learning
about Beijing's military.
"I
would agree that the Chinese have more access in the United States
than we have in China, but we get more out of the relationship,"
said Mr. Cole, who is a leading expert on the Chinese Navy.
Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions
also suggest that the Pentagon's policy on contacts with the Chinese
military is tougher than the Bush administration has previously acknowledged.
On April 30, the Pentagon issued a memo instructing the United States
armed forces to cut off ties with Chinese military and civilian officials
until further notice.
After the White House
raised concerns, Mr. Rumsfeld later dismissed the memorandum as the
work of a policy aide who had misunderstood his intentions. But Mr.
Rumsfeld's rulings suggest that the spirit of the initial memo has
prevailed after all.
Asked to comment, Rear
Adm. Craig Quigley, Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman, said: "There is
a dearth of activity right now. First things first. We need to get
the plane back."
After the plane is returned,
Admiral Quigley said, Mr. Rumsfeld will consider future contacts on
the basis of two main factors: is the United States being provided
with reciprocal access, and are the exchanges of equal value.
The Pentagon's contacts
with the Chinese have a long history. During the Reagan administration,
Washington's goal was to contain Soviet power. The United States sold
arms to the Chinese and provided the Chinese military with advice
on logistics and personnel.
After the crackdown at
Tiananmen Square in 1989, United States contacts with the Chinese
military were suspended. But during the Clinton administration, William
J. Perry, then the defense secretary, restored the ties.
"I think there are
a couple of things we have gotten out of it," Adm. Dennis C.
Blair, the head of the Pacific Command, said in an interview. "I
have sense of what is going on on the other side. I think that this
is a fundamentally safer situation, even if it does not lead to a
nice, neat solution of a crisis, than a situation in, say, North Korea,
where none of us know who those people are.
"On
the Chinese side, although they don't much like it, they are generally
impressed with the superiority of our armed forces. That is a useful
antidote to their self-propaganda," Admiral Blair added.
Republican conservatives,
however, have long questioned such exchanges, arguing that the Chinese
use them to learn about tactics that would strengthen their ability
against Taiwan. Last year, Congress adopted legislation limiting the
content of the contacts.
In additional to canceling
the trip to China of the president of the United States National Defense
University, Mr. Rumsfeld called off two separate visits by students
at the National Defense University.
The visit of a senior
Chinese officer, Gen. Guo Boxiong, which had been scheduled for May
10, was also canceled.
As a result of another
ruling by Mr. Rumsfeld, a Chinese general was disinvited from a one-week
program for senior military and civilian officers at General Stackpole's
Asia- Pacific center.
The defense secretary
also disallowed the participation of a Chinese professor at a three-day
seminar at the center. The professor is the deputy director of a Johns
Hopkins University program in Nanjing.
Later, when the center
sought to invite two Chinese military officers for a 12-week program
this summer its invitation was blocked by the American Embassy in
Beijing. Instead, the center invited two Chinese Foreign Ministry
officials, but the Chinese turned down the invitations. As relations
have deteriorated, the Chinese have rejected some contacts as well.
Washington has proposed
that a working group be convened under the Military Maritime Consultative
Agreement, an accord aimed at avoiding incidents at sea. The purpose
would be to discuss procedures to avoid incidents in the air as well.
The Bush administration had hoped to hold the meeting last month,
but the Chinese did not agree.
Advocates of contacts
with China are fighting an uphill battle. General Stackpole was initially
rebuffed when he sought approval to invite a Chinese researcher to
his institute, but the Pentagon eventually relented. The researcher
is from the South China Sea Institute, on Hainan.
BEIJING,
June 2 - A startlingly frank new report from the Communist Party's
inner sanctum describes a spreading pattern of "collective protests
and group incidents" arising from economic, ethnic and religious
conflicts in China and says relations between party officials and
the masses are "tense, with conflicts on the rise."
The unusual report, produced
by a top party research group and published this week by a Central
Committee press, describes mounting public anger over inequality,
corruption and official aloofness and it paints a picture of seething
unrest almost as bleak as any drawn by dissidents abroad. It describes
a growing pattern of large protests, sometimes involving tens of thousands
of people, and an incident in which a defiant farmer cut off a tax
collector's ear.
The report warns that
the coming years of rapid change - driven in part by China's plans
to accelerate the opening of its markets to foreign trade and investment
- are likely to mean even greater social conflict. It makes urgent
but vague recommendations for "system reforms" that can
reduce public grievances.
"Our
country's entry into the World Trade Organization may bring growing
dangers and pressures, and it can be predicted that in the ensuing
period the number of group incidents may jump, severely harming social
stability and even disturbing the smooth implementation of reform
and opening up," states the report, "China Investigation
Report 2000-2001: Studies of Contradictions Among the People Under
New Conditions."
The study was conducted
by a research group of the Central Committee's organization department,
which runs crucial party affairs including promotions, training and
discipline. The department is headed by Zeng Qinghong, a powerful
and secretive adviser to the party chief, Jiang Zemin, who is widely
believed to be seeking higher office, and it appears to represent
an attempt by Mr. Zeng or other senior officials to set a reform-oriented
agenda for party deliberations and the leadership changes expected
in the next few years.
To make the study, researchers
visited several provinces and worked with other party scholars to
review trends in 11 provinces. The 308-page report cites growing social
and economic inequality and official corruption as over-arching sources
of discontent. The income gap is approaching the "alarm level,"
it says, with disparities widening between city and countryside, between
the fast-growing east coast and the stagnant interior, and within
urban populations. The report describes corruption as "the main
fuse exacerbating conflicts between officials and the masses."
Protests
of all kinds have become more common as China changes from a state-run
economy - a risky course the leadership feels is necessary to China's
long-term growth - and as the public becomes more assertive about
rights.
Workers laid off from
failing state enterprises have protested misuse of company assets
by managers and failure to pay pensions and living stipends. Farmers
angered by unbearable taxes and callous officials have had numerous
deadly encounters with the police.
The report, published
by the party's Central Compilation and Translation Press, was available
for purchase on Friday at the press's office, where buyers were trickling
in based on word-of-mouth. But it has not yet been widely publicized
or sold in the country's bookstores.
The
study was intended, its introduction says, to analyze the causes of
growing popular unrest and to propose countermeasures, and its findings
reflected special research in selected provinces.
Its somber analysis contrasts
starkly with the upbeat messages generally offered in official speeches
and newspapers, and it is unclear why central party officials broke
with the tradition of suppressing sensitive information.
The
book is at once a call for vigilance against threats to the social
order and a plea for speedy reforms within the party and government,
such as strengthening the legal system, reducing the number of local
officials and expanding "socialist democracy." It warns
that economic development must benefit the majority of people and
that victims of change must be fairly compensated, an implicit admission
that this has often not happened.
At
the same time, it attacks the notion that Marxism is obsolescent,
calls for more "ideological work" to inculcate an innovative
spirit and aims to buttress the party's continued monopoly on power
through "system innovation."
Beyond stimulating discussion,
the report could represent an effort by Mr. Zeng or others to lay
out their credentials as the Communist Party enters an uncertain transition
and chooses new leaders. Mr. Jiang, who is also president, and other
top leaders are expected to relinquish most of their party and government
posts over the next two years.
The report provides no
estimate of the number of disturbances, but its strong language suggests
that the scale of demonstrations and riots has been greater than revealed
by the official press or in reports abroad.
While
security agencies have not been able to prevent such incidents, they
have so far prevented disaffected workers and farmers in different
regions from linking up and forming networks that could pose an organized
challenge to Communist rule.
The government's response
to unrest has been two-pronged: containment and reform. In well-publicized
speeches last year, President Jiang and others described the need
to "nip in the bud" any threats to social stability, which
in practice has meant stricter policing of dissenters and tighter
curbs on publishing.
This year, a national
"strike-hard campaign" against crime has included a jump
in arrests and prison sentences for those accused of stirring ethnic
divisions in regions such as Xinjiang, the heavily Uighur Muslim province
in the west. Independent labor organizers have also been jailed.
This week, the commander
of the People's Armed Police, the paramilitary anti-riot force, told
his troops that they must step up preparations to control "sudden
incidents" and improve coordination with local police forces.
"We
must explore reform of weapons and equipment allocation, ensuring
sequential deployment and rapid response," said the commander,
Wu Shuangzhan, in a speech reported in The People's Armed Police News.
Though the country is generally stable, he said, "we must be
crystal clear about the stern developments we face in our work."
At same time, party leaders
are pushing internal change. They have made public spectacles of selected
corrupt officials and are now requiring all officials to study new
ideological formulations, attributed to Mr. Jiang, which are said
to call for creative change while safeguarding party rule. The government
has started with much fanfare a program to increase investment in
neglected western and rural parts of the country and has vowed, without
saying how, to increase farm incomes.
The
new report gives general prescriptions, such as adopting economic
and tax policies to reduce the income gap, improving social security
for workers and building "socialist democracy" in which
people have more control over their affairs.
"In recent years
some areas have, because of poor handling and multiple other reasons,
experienced rising numbers of group incidents and their scale has
been expanding, frequently involving over a thousand or even ten thousand
people," it says.
And protests are becoming
more confrontational, the report says. "Protesters frequently
seal off bridges and block roads, storm party and government offices,
coercing party committees and government and there are even criminal
acts such as attacking, trashing, looting and arson."
Among the specific incidents
the report cites was one in Xinning County, Hunan Province, where
a resisting farmer cut off the ear of a township party official trying
to collect fees. In Longshan County, also in Hunan, two officials
died in a clash with protesters.
The groups participating
in protests, the report says, "are expanding from farmers and
retired workers to include workers still on the job, individual business
owners, decommissioned soldiers and even officials, teachers and students."
The report adds that "hostile
forces" at home and abroad, seeking to create social turmoil,
sometimes fan the divisions over ethnicity, religion and human rights.
The
book's prediction of increased conflict as China enters the World
Trade Organization suggests the complex challenge to those hoping
for more democracy. Political liberals inside China, and many business
leaders and scholars abroad, say that growing trade, foreign investment
and private ownership and the spreading use of the Internet here will
push China toward free speech, rule of law and more accountable government.
Just this week, as President Bush endorsed renewal of normal trade
status for China, he said, "Open trade is a force for freedom
in China, a force for stability in Asia and a force for prosperity
in the United States."
Officials fear that the
predicted jump in unemployment and availability of jobs independent
of the state will lead more people to fight the system. And, for the
next few years at least, that could mean more, not fewer, arrests.
