बीजिंग: चीनी राष्ट्रपति शी जिनपिंग ने शुक्रवार को कहा कि 97 साल से समाजवाद के कार्ल मार्क्स के सिद्धांत के प्रति कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी की निष्ठा ‘पूरी तरह’ सही है और इसने चीन को ‘‘ एशिया के बीमार व्यक्ति ’’ से विश्व की दूसरी सबसे बड़ी अर्थव्यवस्था में तब्दील कर दिया है. चीन में मार्क्सवाद का गहरा प्रभाव है जहां छात्र माध्यमिक स्कूल में मार्क्स और लेनिन के सिद्धांतों के बारे में जानना शुरू कर देते हैं. अमेरिका के बाद चीन विश्व की दूसरी सबसे बड़ी अर्थव्यवस्था है.
शी ने यहां मार्क्स की 200 वीं जयंती के उपलक्ष्य में आयोजित एक विशेष कार्यक्रम में कहा , ‘ विश्व में समाजवाद के विकास में झटके लगे हो सकते हैं , लेकिन कुल मिलाकर मानव समाज के विकास की प्रवृत्ति में बदलाव नहीं हुआ है और न ही कभी यह बदलेगी.’ उन्होंने कहा , ‘‘ मार्क्सवाद ने पूरी तरह से न सिर्फ विश्व को , बल्कि चीन को भी बदल दिया है. ’’ शी ने कहा कि यह जबर्दस्त बदलाव इस बात का पुख्ता सबूत है कि हम केवल समाजवाद के जरिए ही चीन को बचा सकते हैं.
चीन ने किया अमेरिका के आरोपों से इनकार चीन ने शुक्रवार को अमेरिका के इस आरोप से इनकार किया कि होर्न ऑफ अफ्रीका प्रायद्वीप में जिबूती सैन्य रसद अड्डे पर उसके कर्मियों ने अमेरिकी विमान को निशाना बनाने के लिए सैन्य ग्रेड के लेजर का इस्तेमाल किया और विमान के पायलट घायल हो गए. चीन ने कहा कि पेंटागन के आरोप ‘निराधार’ हैं. वाशिंगटन पोस्ट की खबर के अनुसार अमेरिका ने चीन से औपचारिक शिकायत की है कि चीनी सेना ने जिबूती में अमेरिकी विमान को उच्च क्षमता वाले लेजर से निशाना बनाकर दो अमेरिकी चालकों को घायल कर दिया.
अखबार के अनुसार लेजर वाली यह घटना चीन द्वारा 2017 में जिबूती में अपना पहला विदेशी सैन्य अड्डा खोलने के बाद पहले बड़ी झड़प के रुप में सामने आई है. लेजर पायलट को अस्थायी रुप से अंधा कर सकता है. चीन के रक्षा मंत्रालय ने एक बयान में अमेरिकी अधिकारियों के आरोपों को बेबुनियाद कहकर खारिज कर दिया.
चीन के विदेश मंत्रालय ने भी आरोपों से इनकार किया है. विदेश मंत्रालय की प्रवक्ता हुआ चुनयिंग ने संवाददाताओं से कहा , ‘‘ सावधानीपूर्वक जांच के बाद हमने अमेरिका से स्पष्ट तौर पर कहा है कि आरोपों का तथ्यों से तालमेल नहीं बिठता. ’’
वाशिंगटन पोस्ट के अनुसार पेंटागन की प्रवक्ता डाना डब्ल्यू व्हाइट ने कहा कि अमेरिका ने चीन से हाल के हफ्ते की घटना की जांच करने का अनुरोध किया है जिसमें अनधिकृत चीनी लेजर गतिविधि से जिबूती में अमेरिकी विमान प्रभावित हुआ.
विदेश मंत्रालय की प्रवक्ता हुआ चुनयिंग ने कहा , ‘सावधानीपूर्वक जांच के बाद हमने अमेरिका से स्पष्ट तौर पर कहा है कि आरोपों का तथ्यों से तालमेल नहीं बिठता. ’
“Anyone with no invasive intention will find no reason to worry about this,” she added.
While China has long claimed the islands, reefs and other outcroppings within the South China Sea, other nations also have claims there, including Vietnam and the Philippines.
China’s vast reclamation project, which began in earnest in 2013, shortly after Mr. Xi became the country’s paramount leader, has steadily turned once-uninhabited places into fortified islands with airfields and increasingly military outposts. In doing so it has brushed aside warnings from the United States and other nations and even a ruling against its territorial claims by an international arbitration panel in 2016.
China’s base in Djibouti, its first overseas, has long been a source of concern for the United States and other militaries operating around the Horn of Africa. It opened last year and has been portrayed by the Chinese as a logistics base to support antipiracy, counterterrorism and humanitarian operations in Africa and the Middle East.
It also happens to be just a few miles from the only permanent American base in Africa, which was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The base, operated by the Navy adjacent to Djibouti’s international airport, is home to some 4,000 personnel, including those involved in highly secretive missions in the region, including at least two Navy SEAL raids into Yemen.
The use of lasers was first made public in April in a warning to pilots issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. It noted that there had been multiple instances of “a high-power laser” being used near where the Chinese base is. Using lasers to disorient or disable pilots is an old military tactic, but an international protocol adopted in 1995 and joined by China prohibits the practice.
Ms. White said that there was no doubt about the origin of the lasers, and that the Pentagon had asked the Chinese to investigate. “It’s a serious matter,” she said, “and so we’re taking it very seriously.”
In a statement on Friday afternoon, China’s Ministry of National Defense strongly disputed the Pentagon’s accusations, saying they were “completely inconsistent with fact.”
The delegation includes officials like Mr. Navarro and Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, both of whom embrace a more combative approach to dealing with China than other advisers on the trip. Mr. Navarro and Mr. Lighthizer have been focused on China’s unfair trade practices for decades, and insist the country must make more dramatic changes to even the playing field for American companies. They also appear willing to follow through with the tariffs Mr. Trump has threatened, despite the pain it would inflict on many American businesses and workers, if they view it as necessary to increase their leverage with the Chinese.
Other members of the delegation, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow, who heads the National Economic Council, appear more inclined to strike deals with the Chinese that would accomplish the president’s goal of reducing the gap between what America imports from China and what it sells to the country and head off the risk of an escalating trade war. Also on the trip are Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary who has previously seemed receptive to striking deals, Everett Eissenstat, an experienced trade adviser, and Terry Branstad, the United States ambassador to China.
Yukon Huang, a China scholar at the Carnegie Institute, said the group is what he would call an “ideologically hybrid team” with competing views about what is really plaguing the U.S.-China relationship.
“It’s a mixture between two camps, one focused on trade issues, one focused on technology wars,” Mr. Huang said. “The reason it is such, and we don’t have a game plan, is the issues aren’t well understood.”
Among the concerns are a range of practices, including barriers to entry, subsidies and regulations that pressure American companies to hand over sensitive trade secrets, which China uses to make national champions of its homegrown firms. These tactics have enabled the Chinese to dominate global industries like steel, aluminum and solar panels in the past, and American trade advisers say they are currently tipping the playing field for industries of the future, including semiconductors, robotics, cloud computing, electric vehicles and biotechnology.
Photo
China has been able to dominate global industries like steel, aluminum and solar panels in the past, and American trade advisers say it is tipping the playing field for industries of the future, including semiconductors, robotics, cloud computing, electric vehicles and biotechnology. Credit China Daily, via Reuters
Speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Tuesday, Mr. Lighthizer said that the United States has nearly a third of the world’s high technology business, followed by China, and that China’s trade practices were imperiling the economic future of the United States.
“I’m always hoping but not always hopeful,” Mr. Lighthizer said about the prospect of success from the upcoming talks.
Many American industry leaders support Mr. Lighthizer’s efforts to expand access to Chinese sectors that are restricted to American companies and protect American intellectual property from theft and coercion — longstanding complaints of American business leaders about China’s tactics.
But they are wary of the administration’s approach to resolving longstanding problems. Some business leaders fear that the Trump administration may simply accept Chinese offers to lower the trade surplus by purchasing more American goods and open up segments of the economy that are already mature, like financial services, electronic payments or the auto sector. On the other hand, they worry about the economic damage from a trade war if the anti-China wing of the delegation wins the internal debate and follows through with its threats.
Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that there were “serious, growing and legitimate challenges” about Chinese practices, but he also cautioned against the effect of a tit-for-tat tariff war.
“We are deeply concerned that the proposed tariffs list and escalating tariff threats from the administration will not effectively advance our shared goal of changing these harmful Chinese practices,” he said.
Analysts continue to warn of potential risks to economic growth in the United States if administration officials cannot negotiate a quick resolution with the Chinese, and the tariffs go into effect. Goldman Sachs analysts said in a research note this week that new investment restrictions on China that the administration plans to soon outline could also rattle investors.
“Some additional market-disruptive policy moves regarding U.S.-China trade seem likely,” Goldman’s Alec Phillips wrote in the research note, which downplayed the odds of success in this week’s talks: “We believe a substantial breakthrough at this meeting is unlikely as the issues the U.S. has raised — intellectual property policies, technology transfer, and the ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy, in particular — are not the type of technical trade issues that can be resolved quickly.”
The National Association of Manufacturers, one of the most influential business lobbying groups in Washington, has been pressing Mr. Trump and his economic team to open negotiations with the Chinese on a free-trade agreement, an ambitious move that many trade experts doubt would bear fruit, given the struggles of American negotiators to secure far more limited agreements with China in the past.
The manufacturers’ president, Jay Timmons, urged Mr. Trump in a letter earlier this year to “consider pursuing a truly modern, innovative and comprehensive bilateral trade agreement with China that wholly restructures our economic relationship.” The group’s vice president for international economic affairs, Linda Menghetti Dempsey, told a congressional subcommittee in April that such an effort would be “at once both a radical idea and, in our estimation, the most pragmatic and effective way forward” on trade with China.
The Obama administration attempted to negotiate a more limited agreement with China, a bilateral investment treaty, but could not finalize the deal before Mr. Trump took office. His team has not yet revived the talks.
Manufacturers have discussed the plan directly with Mr. Kudlow and with Vice President Mike Pence. Proponents say they believe the idea could appeal to Mr. Trump’s preference for bilateral trade agreements and his confidence in his negotiation skills.
However, White House officials have given no public indication that they are considering such a negotiation. Mr. Lighthizer, Mr. Navarro and other proponents of a harder line against China have argued that the Chinese tend to use such dialogues as a delaying tactic, and that trade negotiations with the Chinese have not been productive in the past.
