In this issue:

Philippines Ponders Removing Troops from Iraq

Washington Post Wants Asian Reserves To Go to IMF

Cheney Pressures Japan To Stick with U.S. in Iraq.

Cheney Strongarms China on Korea, Taiwan, Renminbi

OIC To Hold Emergency Meeting on Mideast, Iraq

Mahathir: Iraq Is Worse Off Now; World Less Secure

From Volume 3, Issue Number 16 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Apr. 20, 2004
Asia News Digest

Philippines Ponders Removing Troops from Iraq

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo agreed for the first time to consider pulling the Philippines' contingent of troops from Iraq. "The decision on whether or not to withdraw our peacekeeping forces will depend on the security situation in Iraq in the days to come," Arroyo said in a written statement on April 14. She covered her exposed backing from Washington by stressing that they were "not making any rash decisions," but with Presidential elections on May 10, Arroyo is clearly feeling the heat from the population over the disaster in Iraq and her subservience to the Bush war policy.

Manila has 49 soldiers serving under Polish command in south-central Iraq and about two dozen other policemen and medical workers elsewhere in the country. The opposition has been stepping up pressure for Arroyo to bring home the troops after a Filipino driver was among several foreigners briefly kidnapped, but later released, by Iraqi gunmen last week.

An Arroyo ally, Senator Rodolfo Biazon, joined the calls on Tuesday, saying the contingent was sent to Iraq on the understanding that they would concentrate on rehabilitation and reconstruction instead of combat.

Washington Post Wants Asian Reserves To Go to IMF

The Washington Post entered the debate over whether to allow a non-European to take over the IMF's top position. A number of developing-sector nations have formally requested scrapping some longstanding traditions at the IMF and World Bank, that they believe work against their interests: Namely, that a European always gets the top spot at the IMF, while an American is number one at the World Bank, and number two at the IMF. A Post editorial on April 13 has a novel proposal for grabbing Asia's reserves under the guise of meeting this "third world request." The Post argues that the old arrangement works well, since it is the wealthy nations which put up the money for IMF bailouts. However, fancies the Post, what about all that money in East Asia's vaults? "If China, South Korea and others transferred some of these reserves to the IMF, they could pool their defensive preparations against hedge-fund assault, while at the same time ending the IMF's dependence on supplementary bailout funds from Americans and Europeans. There would then be no objection to an IMF boss from a developing or middle-income country."

Cheney Pressures Japan To Stick with U.S. in Iraq.

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, in Tokyo for the first leg of a one-week Asia tour, is pressuring Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to not only keep troops in Iraq as part of the coalition occupation there, but to stick with the pledge to double the current 530 Japanese ground troops in Iraq.

Japan is deeply divided on the issue, and there have been several anti-war demonstrations to protest Japanese involvement in Iraq. The kidnapping of three Japanese civilians (who were later released) added to the pressure for a Japanese pull-out, which was one of the kidnappers' main demands. About 2,500 people, including the family members, rallied outside Koizumi's office on April 11, calling for the safe return of the hostages and the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Iraq. Thus far, Koizumi has pledged to keep the troops in Iraq.

Cheney Strongarms China on Korea, Taiwan, Renminbi

Vice President Dick Cheney only barely maintained the official U.S. diplomatic posture in his April 14 meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, and former President Jiang Zemin. On the same day that Bush unilaterally overturned official U.S. policy toward Israel and the Mideast, Cheney came close to a similar course in Beijing.

On Taiwan, the Chinese challenged Cheney to live up to the U.S. defense of the one-China policy. Zeng called on the US to stop arms sales to Taiwan, and to "not send wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces." Cheney expressed support for the one-China policy, but then threatened China that Beijing's supposed hindering of democratic reforms in Hong Kong would "likely reinforce the independence movement in Taiwan," according to a senior U.S. official who briefed the press. Cheney also backed up Chen Shuibian's independence posture by claiming that U.S. military sales and the military build-up were due to the Chinese missiles targetting Taiwan.

Cheney then proceeded to renew the demand that China let the renminbi float. China repeated its often repeated policy that it would not make any sudden shift in the valuation of their currency, but said that Vice Premier Huang Ju would travel to Washington sometime this year to discuss the issue with Treasury Secretary John Snow.

Also, as expected, Cheney presented the "new evidence," supposedly obtained from the interrogation of A.Q. Khan in Pakistan, who is said to have seen three nuclear devices in North Korea, and to have started selling centrifuge and other uranium enrichment facilities to Pyongyang in the 1990s, when they placed their plutonium facilities under UN inspection. With this evidence, Cheney accused China of stalling and holding up the process, being soft on North Korea, and that sanctions must be considered.

Iraq barely came up, the spokesman said. Cheney asked China to buy Westinghouse nuclear plants, for which they are in competition with Japanese and French companies. Cheney also delivered a request from the Vatican that it be allowed to send an ambassador.

OIC To Hold Emergency Meeting on Mideast, Iraq

At the request of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Malaysia, the current chairman of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), will call the emergency meeting for sometime in April, in Malaysia. Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the call was in response to the recent actions by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George Bush. Albar said that Sharon's actions "seem to suggest that he is dismissing the Road Map as a way of resolving the Palestinian issue and embarking on another plan of his own." Malaysia had already called for an emergency meeting to address the chaos in Iraq. Both issues will now be on the table.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) will also hold an emergency meeting, tentatively scheduled for the third week in May, on the crisis in Iraq, although the U.S. declaration of support for Israeli aggression may now be added to the agenda.

Mahathir: Iraq Is Worse Off Now; World Less Secure

"Iraq's plunge into violence since Saddam Hussein's fall has stirred enmities that will kill more Iraqis than ever perished under his reign," said former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in an interview with The Star on April 15. "They have disturbed a hornet's nest. I know Saddam is not the nicest person in the world, but by the time this thing ends, more Iraqis are going to be killed than Saddam ever did.... The Iraqis are being made to suffer in order to save them, and I don't believe in that," he added. "Is [the world] better off now? I think it is worse off. Today, the fear of terrorism is far greater," he said in reference to President Bush's remarks during his press conference on April 13.

On the Madrid bombing, Dr. Mahathir said: "Now you look after the railway stations, but can you be sure that they will not attack other things? So the world is going to spend huge sums of money trying to secure itself only to find that it is not secure."

Dr. Mahathir said any solution would have to include Palestine, allowing Palestinians to claim back territories they lost to Israel.

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