Date published: 2005/03/21
The BBC says:
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned North Korea it faces "other options" if it does not co-operate in six-nation talks on its nuclear plans.
She was speaking in China at the end of a Asian tour that has focused on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Ms Rice also said a new Chinese law targeting Taiwan secession highlighted the risk of the EU's plan to lift its arms embargo on China.
The EU imposed the embargo after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Ms Rice appealed to China to reduce tensions with Taiwan, which Beijing sees as part of its territory.
"The anti-secession law was not a welcome development because anything that is unilateral that increases tensions, which clearly, the anti-secession law did increase tensions, is not good," Ms Rice told journalists after talks with Chinese leaders.
"Anything that is unilateral that increases tensions is not good." That joke will be told again and again in the corridors of power in China. It's amazing they managed to keep a straight face when she said this (perhaps the irony was lost in translation). They must have wondered if this was the best person that George Bush could have chosen to represent America. Needless to say, the Chinese don't really care what the Americans think. The US is digging its own hole on its way down and China is playing the long game on the way up.
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