CHINA - 1.3b reasons not to use sanctions

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1.3 billion reasons not to use sanctions

By David Rennie

CHINA will not be worried by threats to punish its brinkmanship with sanctions.

For more than 20 years, Western capital has poured into China, with the briefest of halts after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. And Beijing remains confident of the seductive power of its markets, with 1.3 billion potential consumers.

China has jeopardised its entry to the World Trade Organisation. If it does not join by summer, it will lose the Permanent Normal Trading Relations status granted by Congress last year. The result will be yet another China trade vote in Washington, but nobody expects a Republican-dominated Congress to vote down free trade.

Nor is President Bush likely to sell Taiwan the Aegis anti-missile system. The likeliest "big ticket" punishment is that Mr Bush will not visit Beijing when he attends an Asia-Pacific summit in Shanghai this autumn. But China is unlikely to gain from the stand-off. One diplomat said: "At the end of the day, it is still left looking like a belligerent, unreasonable power."

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

Answers

I for one, will look to see where things are made before I buy now.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

maggie, it might be useful to take a household inventory to get a better grasp of just where we all stand, guage how much we have contributed to the current situation.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 2001

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