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US Raises Concerns Over China Arms Sales With Israel: Pentagon
The United States has raised concerns about arms sales to China with Israel but has not demanded the resignation of any Israeli official over reported transfers of sensitive weapons or technology to Beijing, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday. The spokesman would not comment specifically on a report by an Israeli television channel that Washington was angered because Israel took back a sensitive weapon system for upgrading that it had sold to China in the mid 1990s. Israel's Channel Two television said the Pentagon had demanded the dismissal of Israeli Defense Ministry director general Amos Yaron over the deal. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said any differences between the United States and Israel were "based on policy not personalities." "Any suggestion or accusation that anyone at the US Defense Department demanded the resignation of anybody in the Israeli government would simply be wrong," he told AFP. "The United States Defense Department is not in a position to dictate to other countries who their officials should be. So that aspect of this story that I have seen is false," he said. He acknowledged, however, longstanding US concerns about the sale and transfer of weapons systems or certain technologies to China. "And we continue to raise those concerns with our allies and our friends, and we look for them to take responsible approaches to arms sales to China," he said. Whitman said the United States had held discussions about its concerns with Israel as well as with the European Union, which is under pressure from France and Germany to lift a 15-year-old embargo on military sales to China. US concerns center on the threat that China's military modernization program poses to US forces in the Taiwan Straits as well as its efforts to modernize its nuclear arsenal and its growing inventory of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, he said. He noted Israel's cancelation in 2000 of a planned sale of its Phalcon early warning radar to China after Washington objected. "We continue to enjoy a strong bilateral relationship and where we have concerns, because our relationship is strong, we are able to express it in a very open and forthright manner," he said. All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
Shenzhou: Eye in the Sky
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Dec 16, 2004Events in China's Shenzhou human spaceflight program don't really proceed at a rapid pace. Having waited several years for the first manned mission in 2003, we have still moved barely more than halfway to the second Chinese astronaut launch, slated for late 2005. But periodically, China releases tidbits of information to remind us that Shenzhou is still moving ahead, and holds plenty to tantalise space observers in the future.
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