China faults Bush on Iraq

The strikingly pointed criticism from a government that Washington calls a key antiterrorism ally was a departure from China's past refusal to comment on the U.S. presidential candidates.

It came in a commentary Monday in a state newspaper by Vice Prime Minister Qian Qichen, who criticized the "Bush Doctrine" as a policy of pre-emptive military attack and a cold war relic.

"It advocates the United States should rule over the whole world with overwhelming force," said the lengthy commentary in The China Daily, an English-language newspaper aimed at foreign readers.

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"The current US predicament in Iraq serves as another example that when a country's superiority psychology inflates beyond its real capability, a lot of trouble can be caused," Mr Qian wrote in a commentary published in the official English-language China Daily and on the state news agency Xinhua.

The timing of the commentary, and Mr Qian's seniority, suggest Chinese leaders wanted their feelings known before today's US presidential election, although the article doesn't mention Democratic contender John Kerry or back any outcome.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/China-buys-into-poll-blasting-Bush/2004/11/01/1099262784752.html?oneclick=true

"The philosophy of the 'Bush Doctrine' is in essence force," Qian said in the government-run English-language China Daily.

"It advocates the United States should rule over the whole world with overwhelming force, military force in particular," he said.

While backing Bush's anti-terrorism efforts, China opposed the war in Iraq and sees the US administration's policies as an example of superpower hegemonism, which Beijing frequently rails against.
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"But the troubles and disasters the United States has met do not stem from threats by others, but from its own cocksureness and arrogance."

Far from winning peace for itself and the Arab world, Washington has "opened a Pandora's box", intensifying ethnic and religious conflicts, he argued.

"The Iraq war was an optional war, not a necessary one, and the pre-emptive principle should be removed from the dictionary of the US national security, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also said," Qian wrote, citing the Clinton administration official.

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