China to Resist West’s Policy on Range of Issues

Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, in a wide-ranging news conference Tuesday, expressed Chinese determination to resist Western policies on a broad range of international issues.

Exuding confidence as spokesman for a nation with growing economic and military power, Qian sharply denied that Beijing poses any threat to its neighbors. He charged that this idea is being promoted by international arms sellers looking for new buyers.

“After the end of the Cold War, military industries in some countries lost their markets,” Qian told a news conference at the Great Hall of the People. “They need to find new markets. That is the reason why they create the opinion that China poses a threat and that there is tension in the Asia-Pacific region--to promote sales of their arms.”

China’s military modernization program is purely defensive, and “it is completely unnecessary to have an arms race in the region,” Qian said.

Despite seeking to reassure China’s neighbors that its intentions are peaceful, Qian took a variety of positions at sharp variance with the policies of Western nations. He warned the United States not to attach human rights or other conditions to trade with China. He criticized Britain for supporting democratic reforms in Hong Kong and France for having approved the sale of jet fighters to Taiwan.

While Western governments have lined up in recent days to offer verbal support to embattled Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Qian pointedly refrained from any similar expression of support.

“Whatever change may occur within Russia, our policy of developing friendly and good-neighborly relations based on the . . . principles of peaceful coexistence will remain unchanged,” Qian said.

Qian did signal support, however, for the hard-line Communist government of North Korea, which precipitated a diplomatic crisis when it announced March 12 that it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Qian said China opposes any attempt to impose U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang for its refusal to fully cooperate with international inspections of its nuclear facilities.

The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed at a Monday meeting in New York that they will submit the issue to the U.N. Security Council if diplomatic efforts fail, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.