The following is a roundup of stories related to world news which
appeared in full on our website during the week of August 4-11.
- "China Is not an Enemy"
Senator Joseph Biden, the new chairman of the US Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, led a four-member senate delegation to Beijing
during this week. The delegation has met with president Jiang
Zemin, premier Zhu Rongji and the foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan.
Biden expressed confidence that the US and China would resolve
their differences as they expand economic and trade links, saying
that "China is not an enemy.”
- China/Japan Trade War Easing
According to the Japanese embassy in Beijing Tuesday, Japan decided
to lift some of its import bans on Chinese chicken, turkey and
eggs. This move was welcomed by China as "conducive to the
resumption and development of the poultry trade.”
- Japan's Germ Warfare
Victims of germ warfare during the Japanese invasion of China in
the 1930s to 1940s, prepared over the weekend for their 25th
hearing against the Japanese Government. Some former soldiers with
Japanese Unit 731 and Japanese lawyers working for the delegation
of plaintiffs joined a meeting in the capital city of East China's
Zhejiang Province to prepare the case against the Japanese
Government. Yoshio Shinozuka, 78, said on Tuesday he is anguished
over the cruelty Unit 731, of which he was a member, perpetrated on
Chinese victims in Pingfang, a city in Northeast China's
Heilongjiang Province, during the war.
- China’s Concern About US -Japan-Australia Security Talks
China is concerned about the proposed regular multilateral security
talks among the United States, Japan and Australia, and believes
that a dialogue mechanism of any kind should be aimed at
maintaining the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region.
- Human Cloning?
A
team of researchers, led by Italian embryologist Severino Antinori,
announced at the US National Academy of Sciences that they would
soon pioneer efforts to clone humans in an effort to help childless
couples become biological parents. This unleashed a furor in the
scientific community over the morality of creating duplicates of
living people.
- Moscow-Pyongyang Declaration
Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, paid a nine-day visit
across Siberia by train. He met with Vladimir Putin, the president
of Russia. The two leaders signed a declaration which focused on
strategic stability and the guidelines of expanding bilateral
friendship and cooperation. Relations between the two countries,
which have stagnated for over a decade, have warmed. The two
leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to peace and security on
the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.
(CIIC 08/12/2001)
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