China: Nuclear Spying Report Sours Ties Further Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Nuclear Spying Report Further Sours US-China Ties By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING, May 27 (IPS) - Hopes for a quick improvement in US-China ties have been dashed by an American congressional report that claims Beijing has been stealing nuclear technology for 20 years. Coming on the heels of Chinese fury over the NATO's mistaken bombing of their embassy in Belgrade, the allegations this week further sour the already testy atmosphere between the two countries. The anti-foreign riots that exploded in part of China after the May 7 attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade have died out, but their repercussions are likely to leave a deep imprint on damaged U.S.-China relations, and China's future as a whole. ''Is there any relationship between this report and the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, reportedly because of a wrong map provided by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency?,'' asks Yan Xuetong, a research fellow with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. ''Is it to distract public attention, take revenge on China or damage Sino-US ties?'' he continues, illustrating what is common sentiment here. The release of the so-called Cox report comes at a time when China is gripped by a strong nationalist and anti-foreign sentiment unleashed by the embassy bombing three weeks ago. Many people here sincerely believe the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's bombing of the embassy, which was described by the US President Bill Clinton as a 'tragic mistake', was intentional. In the wake of the bombing, the state-sanctioned media has geared up to drive home the message that the bombing was just a part of an elaborate plot to keep China from achieving its deserved and imminent greatness. The Communist Party's flagship, The 'People's Daily' attributed the attack to ''aggressive foreign forces, jealous of China's swift development and growing international strength''. It denounced the West's ''global strategy for world hegemony,'' claiming the US, as the only superpower, particularly couldn't tolerate the growth of a socialist China. The long-awaited congressional report on China's alleged spying efforts seen in Washington on Tuesday is likely to add fuel to such sentiments. The 700-page document, released by a special House of Representatives Committee chaired by the Christopher Cox, asserts China obtained secret information on seven nuclear warheads and the neutron bomb in ''two decades of espionage'' at US nuclear weapons laboratories. Saying China had stolen secrets on every major U.S. nuclear weapons over the past 20 years, the report adds that it was ''extremely likely'' that the espionage continues today. Some reports say the American intelligence agencies disagree with the conclusions of the Cox report and question its accuracy. Still, the denunciation from Beijing was swift and indignant. Late Tuesday night, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said the charge in the Cox report that China has threatened the national security of the United States by stealing its military technology is groundless and done with ulterior motives. ''These sensational allegations are absurd,'' Zhu said. The report the spokesman said, was aimed at instigating anti-China sentiment and diverting people's attention from the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. However, diplomats in Beijing believe that the NATO bombing and its extensive coverage in the press here has provided the government with a useful diversion from the 10th anniversary of the June 4th Tiananmen massacre. ''Instead of having to apologise to their people for all the innocent victims the Communist Party ordered killed in 1989, the government is telling Chinese people now they deserve an apology from the West,'' says a Beijing-based diplomat. At the same time, there is little doubt that NATO bombing which killed three Chinese journalists and injured 20 other embassy officials sparked genuine anger in China. For days after the bombing, streets in Beijing and few other cities were awash with enraged crowds of students and workers who chanted ''blood for blood'' and asked for all ''foreign dogs'' to be killed. The government did not try to stop the demonstrators from damaging the embassies of the United States, Britain and Albania. On the contrary, it encouraged and channeled the riots, providing buses, banners and even stones for students from China's leading universities. Now, the feeling of anger has been set free and is out in the open. ''I never thought there was so much anger in China,'' says Lucie Kynge, a foreign resident in Beijing. ''The maids, the workers, the salesladies -- everyone is angry. And we, the foreigners, are the scapegoats.'' While the authorities tried to control public's anger and give it a purely nationalistic spin, they do have something to worry about, not least because China has a disturbing record of anti- foreign demonstrations that later turned against the government. In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, rebels fighting against the Western missionaries and their Christian converts, launched a series of attacks on mission compounds and foreigners throughout the country and besieged the legation quarter in Beijing. The Qing Dynasty supported the rebels, with Empress Dowager Cixi issuing a ''declaration of war'' against the foreign powers and praising the Boxers as a loyal militia. The irony however is that weakened equally by nationalist movements as by foreign aggressions, the Qing Dynasty fell a decade later. (END/IPS/ap-ip/ab/js/99) (c) 1999 IPS ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.04.99-08:15:41-7682