President Robert Mugabe’s erratic treatment of foreign economic interests could see China, which has hitherto shown that it is willing to put its need for markets and raw materials above the need to promote internationally accepted norms of behaviour; change its uncritical stance towards pariah states like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and Iran.
This was the view of former United States ambassador to Beijing Clark Randt two years ago when he looked at the relations between the United States and China over the past 30 years and also at the 30 years to come. Randt was the longest serving US ambassador to Beijing.
According to one of the cables released by Wikileaks, Randt says new found interest in internationally accepted donor principles such as transparency, good governance, environmental and labour protections, and corporate social responsibility will have matured in 30 years´ time, making China a reliable partner for the United States, other donor countries, and international organisations in alleviating poverty, developing infrastructure, improving education and fighting infectious disease.
He says as one of the world´s premier economic powers, China can be expected to have all but discarded its over-worn and outdated “non-interference” rhetoric in the face of massive Chinese investment assets and other economic interests abroad.
“As evidenced by Chinese policies toward pariah states like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and Iran, China is still willing to put its need for markets and raw materials above the need to promote internationally accepted norms of behaviour.
“However, the possible secession of southern Sudan (where much of the country´s oil is found) from the repressive Khartoum-based Bashir regime, the erratic treatment of foreign economic interests in Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe, the dangers to regional safety and stability posed by Burma´s dysfunctional military junta, and the threat to China´s energy security that a nuclear-armed Iran would represent have given Beijing cause to re-calibrate its previously uncritical stance toward these international outlaws.
“If China´s integration into global economic and security structures continues apace, we would expect its tolerance for these sorts of disruptive players to decrease proportionately,” the cable says.
China is now the world’s second biggest economy and could overtake the United States within the next 20 to 30 years. It, however, seems to be strengthening its relations with Zimbabwe and recently lent the country $700 million. It, however, told the Zimbabwean government that it expects its investments in the country to be protected in view of the country’s indigenisation laws.
Full cable
Viewing cable 09BEIJING22, LOOKING AT THE NEXT 30 YEARS OF THE U.S.-CHINA
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Reference ID
Created
Released
Classification
Origin
09BEIJING22
2009-01-06 08:08
2010-12-04 21:09
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Beijing
VZCZCXRO0309
OO RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHBJ #0022/01 0060841
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 060841Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1691
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
RHMFISS/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 07 BEIJING 000022
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR THE SECRETARY, DEPUTY SECRETARY, EAP A/S
HILL, S/P, EAP/CM
NSC FOR DWILDER
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/05/2034
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, ECON, EFIN, MARR, MASS, CH
SUBJECT: LOOKING AT THE NEXT 30 YEARS OF THE U.S.-CHINA
RELATIONSHIP
Classified By: Ambassador Clark T. Randt. Reasons 1.4 (b/d)
1. (C) January 1, 2009, marked the 30th Anniversary of the
establishment of diplomatic relations between the United
States and the People´s Republic of China. This anniversary
followed the PRC commemoration of roughly 30 years of China´s
“reform and opening” policy under Deng Xiaoping, which led to
China´s staggering economic growth.
2. (C) Thirty years ago, China was just emerging from the
nightmare of the Cultural Revolution and 30 years of
fratricidal misrule. China´s economy was crippled by years
of disastrous policies like the Great Leap Forward. The
population was coming to terms with the world´s most
draconian population controls enacted in 1976 after decades
of Maoist state-subsidies encouraging large families.
Chinese foreign relations tended to be more influenced by
ideological yardsticks than economic links since China had
very few commercial links with the outside world. In 1979,
Chinese urbanites on average made the equivalent of five
dollars per month.
3. (C) Just as no one in 1979 would have predicted that China
would become the United States´ most important relationship
in thirty years, no one today can predict with certainty
where our relations with Beijing will be thirty years hence.
However, given the current significance of the bilateral
relationship and the risk of missing opportunities to jointly
address ongoing and predictable future challenges, below we
look at trends currently affecting China with an eye to how
those trends might affect relations. Several issues leap
out, including China´ insatiable resource needs, our growing
economic interdependence, China´s rapid military
modernization, a surge in Chinese nationalism, China´s
demographic challenges, and the PRC´s increasing influence
and confidence on the world stage.
4. (C) China has been plagued over the millennia by
unforeseen events that devastated formerly prosperous
regimes. Mongol invasion, the Black Death, uncountable
peasant uprisings, warlords, tax revolts, communist
dictatorship, colonialism, famine, earthquakes and other
plagues were largely unforeseen by the China watchers of the
past. This report focuses generally on more optimistic
projections. Given China´s history, however, the United
States should also gird itself for the possibility that China
will fall short of today´s mostly sanguine forecasts.
Resource Consumption
——————–
5. (C) Popular and scholarly works in recent years highlight
China´s growing demand for natural resources and the possible
impact that China´s pursuit of resources will have on its
foreign policy. Since economic reforms began in the late
1970s, industrial and exchange rate policies have fueled
investment in resource-intensive heavy industries in China´s
coastal region, which currently account for approximately 55
percent of the country´s total energy consumption today. A
construction boom over the past decade has also stimulated
growth in heavy industries. China is now a leading steel
producer and currently accounts for 50 percent of the world´s
annual cement production. Reflecting China´s emphasis on
resource-intensive industries, China´s energy utilization
rate grew faster than its GDP between 2002 and 2006. In
1990, China consumed 27 quadrillion British Thermal Units
(BTUs) of energy, accounting for 7.8 percent of global
consumption. In 2006, it consumed 68.6 quadrillion BTUs or
15.6 percent of the global total. According to U.S.
Department of Energy statistics, by 2030 China will account
for 145.5 quadrillion BTUs or 20.7 percent of global energy
consumption.
6. (C) China´s oil demand has grown substantially over the
last 30 years. In 1980, China consumed 1.7 million barrels
of oil per day, almost all of which was produced
domestically. In 2006, China consumed 7.4 million barrels
per day, second only to the United States. According to the
International Energy Agency (IEA), China´s oil consumption
will reach 16.5 million barrels per day in 2030. More than
two thirds of the increased demand will come from the
transport sector as vehicle ownership rates rise. China
became a net importer of oil in 1993, and it now relies on
imports to meet a growing portion of its fossil fuel needs.
The IEA forecasts that China´s oil import dependence will
rise from 50 percent this year to 80 percent by 2030, as
domestic oil production peaks early in the next decade. To
strengthen the country´s future energy security, the Chinese
Government has adopted a “go out” policy that encourages
national oil companies (NOCs) to acquire equity stakes in
foreign oil and gas production. Today, state-owned Chinese
oil giants CNPC/PetroChina, CNOOC, and Sinopec can be found
in Sudan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Angola, and the
Caspian Basin.
7. (C) China has also increased its reliance on imported
minerals, and many analysts have attributed the global
commodities boom of recent years in part to China´s growing
demand. Between 1980 and 2006, China became the world´s
largest consumer of iron, copper and aluminum. Chinese
conglomerates are ubiquitous in sub-Saharan Africa exploiting
mineral wealth there, and Chinese multinationals have
significant investments in Australian mineral and uranium
production.
8. (C) China´s reliance on coal has come at an appalling
environmental cost. This year, China surpassed the United
States in carbon emissions, and it will soon become the
world´s biggest energy consumer. Between now and 2030, the
IEA estimates, China will need to add 1,312 gigawatts of
power generating capacity, more than the total current
installed capacity in the United States. Coal-fired power
generation, a major source of air pollution, accounts for
approximately 78 percent of China´s total electricity supply,
and it will likely remain the predominant fuel in electricity
generation for at least the next 20 years. Analysts predict
that domestic coal production will peak in the next 15 to 25
years. China already became a net importer of coal in 2007,
and coal imports are expected to grow in the coming decades
to meet growing demand in China´s coastal provinces.
9. (C) The Chinese Government recognizes the need to reduce
dependence on coal, and it is pursuing policies to diversify
its energy mix. China is already the largest producer of
renewable energy in the world, with major investments in
large-scale hydro and wind power projects. Nuclear and
natural gas power will also account for a greater proportion
of energy production, but under current projections, efforts
to diversify China´s energy mix will not have a large enough
impact to curb greenhouse gas emissions growth.
10. (C) China´s energy intensive growth has also had tragic
consequences for public health. By most measurements, at
least half of the world´s most polluted major cities are in
China. Rural residents, in particular farmers, have been
affected by water pollution and dwindling water supplies,
which are frequently redirected for industrial use.
Respiratory disease, water-borne illness and tainted food
scares are facts of modern life in the country. According to
a recent WHO study, diseases caused by indoor and outdoor air
pollution kill 656,000 Chinese citizens every year. Another
95,600 deaths are attributed annually to polluted drinking
water.
11. (C) China´s increasing reliance on imported natural
resources has foreign policy ramifications and provides
opportunities for the United States. A China that is
increasingly dependent on Middle Eastern oil might be more
likely to support policies that do not destabilize the Middle
East. Take Iran, for instance. We have long been frustrated
that China has resisted (with Russia) tough sanctions aimed
at curbing Iran´s nuclear program. In the future, a China
increasingly dependent on foreign energy supplies may
recalculate the risk a nuclear Iran would pose to the greater
Persian Gulf region´s capacity to export oil.
12. (C) Another opportunity presented by China´s increasing
resource consumption is in the joint development of
technological responses to reduce carbon emissions and to
diminish the public health impact of industrial growth.
Scientific publications around the world conclude that the
projected rate of global energy and natural resource
consumption is unsustainable. Experts warn that we must find
alternative forms of energy in order to avert calamities
posed by global climate change. International efforts to
develop and significantly utilize renewable energy, clean up
our shared global environment, and conserve our remaining raw
materials will not be effective without meaningful Chinese
participation. As the world´s preeminent technological power
and as a leader in multilateral energy and scientific
organizations, the United States is in a unique position to
work with China to overcome these challenges.
Economic Interdependence and Chinese Demographics
——————————————— —-
13. (C) In the next fifteen years, while China´s overall
population is predicted to stabilize, its urban population
will likely grow to almost 1 billion, an increase (of 300
million people) equal to the entire current population of the
United States. China plans to build 20,000 to 50,000 new
skyscrapers over the next two decades — as many as ten New
York cities. More than 170 Chinese cities will need mass
transit systems by 2025, more than twice the number now
present in all of Europe. China is now surpassing Germany as
the world´s third largest economy and is projected to
overtake Japan within the next five years. By the end of the
next thirty years, China´s economy could rival the United
States in overall scale (although its per capita income will
likely only be one quarter of the United States´).
14. (C) Behind these outward symbols of success will be an
increasingly complicated economic picture. Since 1979, by
reversing the misguided economic policies of the Mao era,
liberalizing labor markets and prices, opening to foreign
investment, and taking advantage of the West´s
consumer-driven policies, China has maintained fast growth.
However, the set of circumstances that allowed such
impressive growth rates will no longer exist in the future.
15. (C) Many speculate that China has reached the limit to
easy productivity gains by rationalizing the state-planned
economy. The Economist Intelligence Unit expects China´s
annual growth to slow from around 10 percent in the last 30
years to 4.5 percent by 2020. After 2015 when the labor
force peaks as a share of the population, labor costs will
rise faster. This will increasingly make other countries
like India and Vietnam more attractive for labor-intensive
investment. In addition, workers will have to support a
growing number of retirees. Early retirement ages combined
with the urban one-child limits creates the so-called “4-2-1?
social dilemma: each worker will have to support four
grandparents, two parents and one child. Savings rates will
start falling as the elderly draw down their retirement
funds.
16. (C) China will have to manage an economy increasingly
dependent on domestic consumption and service industries for
growth. Already, urbanites are buying 1,000 new cars per
day, making China the world´s largest Internet and luxury
goods market, and traveling abroad in growing numbers. By
2025, China will have the world´s largest middle class, and
China will likely have completed the transition from the
majority rural population of today to a majority urban
population. These consumers of tomorrow will likely flock to
products from around the world as their North American,
European and Japanese counterparts do today, providing new
opportunities for American business. If incomes continue to
grow, it is likely that the Chinese middle class will react
like educated urbanites in other countries by exerting
pressure on the Government to improve its dismal performance
on environmental protection, food and product safety. We are
already seeing increased public activism over such issues
today.
17. (C) China will face a challenge in the next thirty years
encouraging this urban consumption while dealing with the
social equality issues inherent in a rural population where
over 200 million people still live on less than a dollar a
day. China will also have to find a way to improve the lot
of between 150 and 230 million migrant workers who today must
leave their children and aging parents behind in their home
villages to travel to the industrial centers of the
relatively developed coastal regions to work in factories or
on construction projects.
18. (C) With China´s phenomenal growth has come increased
economic interdependence. This will likely increase,
although some of the less-balanced elements of China´s
economic interactions should be mitigated. Rising
consumption rates should work to lower China´s trade surplus
as well as its overabundance of foreign exchange reserves.
More assets controlled by corporations and individuals, as
opposed to the government, will diversify outward investment,
reducing political control by Beijing, but also the utility
of political suasion for U.S. policymakers interested in
effecting the flow of capital to international hotspots.
Chinese Nationalism and Confidence on the International Stage
——————————————— —————-
19. (C) As one of two main pillars of post-Mao Chinese
Communist Party rule (the other being sustained economic
growth), Chinese nationalism is growing and should be
monitored closely. As witnessed during the 2008 Beijing
Olympics, Chinese are increasingly proud of the tremendous
strides their country has made in recent years. More and
more young people see China as having “arrived” and might
possess the confidence and willingness to assume the
responsibilities of a major power. However, as was evident
during protests over the 1999 mistaken bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade, the 2004 protests over Japanese
textbooks, and more recently the anti-France diatribes that
followed the roughing-up of a disabled Olympic torch bearer
in Paris by Free Tibet supporters, this nationalism can also
lead to jingoism. Chinese leaders of a system with few
outlets to express political sentiments are faced with trying
to give vent to the occasional uprising of nationalistic
anger without letting it get out of hand or allowing it to
focus on the failings of the central leadership.
20. (C) With notable exceptions like Zhou Enlai, Chinese
foreign policy practitioners thirty years ago had little
practical experience dealing with the West. Since then,
Chinese diplomats and subject matter experts are increasingly
well-educated, well-traveled and well-respected. Chinese
diplomats at international fora such as the UN and the WTO
have become adept at using procedural rules to attain
diplomatic or commercial ends. This trend will likely
continue in the coming decades, increasing the likelihood of
American decision makers finding more able adversaries when
we disagree on issues, but also more able partners where we
can agree to jointly tackle a problem of mutual concern such
as nonproliferation, alternative energy or pandemic
influenza.
21. (C) While still reluctant to claim China is a global
leader, Chinese officials are gradually gaining confidence as
a regional power. By the end of the next 30 years, China
should no longer be able to portray itself as the
representative of lesser developed countries. This does not
mean that it will necessarily identify with the more
developed, mainly Western countries; it well might choose to
pursue some uniquely Chinese path. In the coming 30 years, a
U.S. President might be involved in negotiations with a
Chinese leader seeking to reshape global financial
institutions like the IMF or the WTO or establish rival
institutions for non-Western countries in order to mitigate
domestic Chinese concerns. Even so, China´s growing position
as a nation increasingly distinct from the less-developed
world may expand our common interests and make it easier for
the United States to convince China to act like a responsible
global stakeholder.
22. (C) Foreign assistance coordination is another area of
opportunity. China is rapidly ramping up its global economic
presence, not only via resource extraction ventures and cheap
exports, but increasingly via direct investment and
assistance. This investment and assistance are welcome in
most less-developed countries, whether in Africa or Southeast
Asia, and particularly in countries where China´s
longstanding policy of “no strings attached no political
interference” appeals to democratically-challenged dictators
and kleptocrats. However, China is already facing blowback
as a result of its more cavalier approach to issues that more
scrupulous donors have wrestled with for decades. Scant
attention paid to worker safety, job opportunities for local
people, environmental protection, and political legitimacy
has had negative consequences for China on multiple
occasions, from a tarnished international image and being
used as a political whipping boy by opposition groups in
democratic countries to unpaid loans, expropriated
investments, and even the deaths of Chinese expatriates. As
a result, China is beginning to understand the merits of
international assistance standards not for altruistic
reasons, but for achieving China´s own bottom-line
imperatives of a more secure international position and
better-protected economic interests in third countries. This
realization, coupled with China´s growing economic clout on
the world stage, make it quite possible that, in the next 30
years, China will come to be identified by the average
citizen in less developed countries not as “one of us” but as
“one of them.”
23. (C) In all likelihood, a new-found (if still somewhat
grudging) PRC interest in internationally accepted donor
principles such as transparency, good governance,
environmental and labor protections, and corporate social
responsibility will have matured in 30 years´ time, making
China a reliable partner for the United States, other donor
countries, and international organizations in alleviating
poverty, developing infrastructure, improving education and
fighting infectious disease. And as one of the world´s
premier economic powers, China can be expected to have all
but discarded its over-worn and outdated “non-interference”
rhetoric in the face of massive Chinese investment assets and
other economic interests abroad.
24. (C) As evidenced by Chinese policies toward pariah states
like Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and Iran, China is still willing
to put its need for markets and raw materials above the need
to promote internationally accepted norms of behavior.
However, the possible secession of southern Sudan (where much
of the country´s oil is found) from the repressive
Khartoum-based Bashir regime, the erratic treatment of
foreign economic interests in Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe, the
dangers to regional safety and stability posed by Burma´s
dysfunctional military junta, and the threat to China´s
energy security that a nuclear-armed Iran would represent
have given Beijing cause to re-calibrate its previously
uncritical stance toward these international outlaws. If
China´s integration into global economic and security
structures continues apace, we would expect its tolerance for
these sorts of disruptive players to decrease
proportionately.
25. (C) China´s work in the Six-Party Talks and the Shanghai
Cooperative Organization may provide guidance as to how to
accelerate this trend. China plays a leading and often
responsible and constructive role in both of these
multilateral groups. Future U.S. policy-makers might
usefully consider additional international mechanisms that
include both U.S. and Chinese membership such as the proposed
Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism that may grow out
of the Six-Party Talks. The Chinese themselves have
suggested a Six-Party Talks-like grouping to address the Iran
nuclear issue, perhaps a P5-plus-1-plus-Iran. In the future,
we may wish to consider the United States joining the East
Asia Summit (EAS).
26. (C) Likewise, as the Chinese economy takes up a larger
portion of the global economy, it inevitably will become
increasingly affected by the decisions of international
economic and financial institutions. Similarly, China´s
economic decisions will have global implications, and its
cooperation will become essential to solving global-scale
problems. Drawing China constructively into regional and
global economic and environmental dialogues and institutions
will be essential. More and more experts see the utility of
establishing an Asia-Pacific G-8, to include China, Japan,
and the United States plus India, Australia, Indonesia, South
Korea and Russia; others say the time is ripe to include
China as a member of a G-9. Giving China a greater voice is
seen as a way to encourage China to assume a larger burden in
supporting the international economic and financial system.
Role of the Military
——————–
27. (C) The disparate possibilities exist that in the coming
decades the PLA will evolve into a major competitor, maintain
only a regional presence or become a partner capable of
joining us and others to address peacekeeping,
peace-enforcing, humanitarian relief and disaster mitigation
roles around the world. China may be content to remain only
a regional power, but Deng Xiaoping´s maxim urging China to
hide its capabilities while biding its time should caution us
against predicting that the PLA´s long-term objectives are
modest. In the years to come, our defense experts will need
to closely monitor China´s contingency plans and we will need
to use every diplomatic and strategic tool we have to prevent
intimidating moves toward Taiwan. In the coming years,
Chinese defense capabilities will continue to improve. The
PLA thirty years from today will likely have sophisticated
anti-satellite weapons, state-of-the-art aircraft, aircraft
carriers and an ability to project force into strategic sea
lanes.
28. (C) Thirty years ago the PLA was a bloated political
organization with antiquated equipment and tactics. Today,
the PLA is leaner and is becoming a modern force. Chinese
military and paramilitary units have participated in
UN-sponsored peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Kosovo,
Haiti and Africa. In December 2008, for the first time, the
PLA Navy deployed beyond the immediate waters surrounding the
country to participate in anything beyond a goodwill tour to
combat piracy off the Horn of Africa. It is likely that
China will continue to support UN-sponsored PKOs, and if the
piracy expedition is successful, China might follow up with
expeditions to future piracy hotspots such as the Strait of
Malacca or elsewhere.
29. (C) Over the past thirty years, Chinese officials have
come to begrudgingly acknowledge the benefits to East Asia
resulting from the U.S. military presence in the Pacific,
especially the extent that a U.S. presence in the Pacific is
an alternative to a more robust Japanese military presence.
A peaceful resolution of the threat posed by North Korea
might cause China to call for an end to the U.S. base
presence on the Korean Peninsula. Perceived threats to
China´s security posed by Japan´s participation in missile
defense or by future high-tech U.S. military technologies
might cause tomorrow´s Chinese leaders to change their
assessment and to exert economic pressures on U.S. allies
like Thailand or the Philippines to choose between Beijing
and Washington.
30. (C) Whatever the state of our future relations with
China, we will need to understand more about the Chinese
military. Multilateral training and exercises are
constructive ways to promote understanding and develop joint
capabilities that could be used in real-life situations. In
the coming years, the Chinese may be called upon to
participate in regional peacekeeping and humanitarian relief
exercises. Some of these could be handled under UN auspices,
but others could be bilateral or multilateral. For instance,
Cobra Gold, which is held every year in Thailand, is
America´s foremost military exercise in Asia. It has a
peacekeeping component and since the December 2004 tsunami in
Indian Ocean has included a humanitarian relief element.
With proper buy-in by the Pentagon and PACOM, we could create
a program to engage the PLA more directly both with our
military and with friendly militaries in the region. Modest
efforts at expanding search and rescue capabilities on the
high seas, developing common forensic techniques for use in
mass casualty events, conducting exercises with PLA units
tasked with responding to civil nuclear emergencies, or
table-top exercises for U.S. and Chinese junior officers
could be steps that promote trust with little risk. At the
same time, more frequent, regularly scheduled high-level
reciprocal visits between Chinese and U.S. security officials
might eventually lead to a constructive strategic security
policy dialogue on nonproliferation, counterterrorism and
other issues.
Taiwan and Human Rights
————————
31. (C) Taiwan was the most vexing issue holding up the
establishment of relations 30 years ago and remains the
toughest issue for U.S.-China relations despite significant
improvement in cross-Strait relations since the election of
Taiwan President Ma. It will remain a delicate topic for the
foreseeable future. We should continue to support Taiwan and
Mainland efforts to reduce tension by increasing Taiwan´s
“international space” and reducing the Mainland´s military
build-up across from Taiwan.
32. (C) Thirty years ago, the Chinese state interfered in
virtually every aspect of its citizens´ lives. An
individual´s work unit provided housing, education, medical
care and a burial plot. Reeducation sessions and thought
reform were common, churches and temples were closed, and
average citizens had little access to the outside world.
Today, Chinese have far greater ability to travel, read
foreign media and worship. Nonetheless, the overall human
rights situation falls well short of international norms.
Today, China´s growing cadre of well-educated urbanites
generally avoids politics and seems more interested in
fashion and consumerism than in ideology; after all,
outside-the-box political thinking, much less activism,
remains dangerous. However, any number of factors in the
future ranging from rising unemployment among recent college
graduates, or growing discontent over the income divide
separating rich urbanites from poor peasants, to discontent
among the mass of migrant workers could lead to unrest and
increased political activism. The Chinese Government still
responds with brutal force to any social, religious,
political or ideological movement it perceives as a potential
threat. Chinese political leaders´ occasional nods toward
the need for political reform and increased democracy suggest
a realization that the current one-party authoritarianism has
its weak points, but do not promise sufficient relaxation of
party control to create a more dynamically stable polity in
the long term.
33. (C) While the U.S. model of democracy is not the only
example of a tolerant open society, we should continue to
push for the expansion of individual freedoms, respect for
the rule of law and the establishment of a truly free and
independent judiciary and press as being necessities for a
thriving, modern society and, as such, in China´s own
interests. Someday, China will realize political reform.
When that day comes, we will want to be remembered by Chinese
for having helped China to advance.
Randt
(20 VIEWS)
