Copyright 1999 Journal of Commerce, Inc.
Journal of
Commerce
December 15, 1999, Wednesday
SECTION: EDITORIAL/OPINION; Pg. 7
LENGTH: 565 words
HEADLINE:
Other voices
BYLINE: (Following are newspaper
editorials excerpted and distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
BODY:
MILWAUKEE
JOURNAL SENTINEL:
China has violated human rights, tried to steal the military secrets and
intellectual property of the U.S. government and U.S.
companies, sought to manipulate U.S. elections and menaced Taiwan. Nevertheless,
Israel, one of this country's closest allies, has been selling weapons to China
for many years. It's a business that ought to end.
Israel has had a
close, secretive military relationship with China for more than 20 years and has
agreed, most recently, to outfit a Russian-made, Chinese-owned cargo plane with
an Israeli-made radar system similar to the radar used in U.S. reconnaissance
aircraft.
Israeli officials insist they never passed on to China any of
the U.S. military technology that the U.S. supplies to Israel every year.
Besides, U.S. officials are being a little hypocritical . . . The United States
is a leading participant in the worldwide arms bazaar.
Nevertheless, the
Israeli-China military connection ought to be severed. If China were to use
Israeli-supplied arms in any attack on or threat against Taiwan, there could be
a sharp anti-Israeli backlash in this country . . . There are also compelling
moral reasons to ban weapons sales to governments that suppress the democratic
rights of their people.
In a defiant and even arrogant rejection of U.S.
requests to sever the connection, Israel hosted a visit by former Chinese Prime
Minister Li Peng . . . and offered to equip three more Chinese planes with the
radar.
Whatever advantages Israel may feel it can achieve by selling
weapons are offset by its liabilities. China shouldn't be sold weapons - by
Israel, by the United States or by anyone else.
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
There's no single villain, but while everyone talks about drug patents
and trade rules, millions of people are dying in Africa.
What bubonic plague was to 14th century Europe, AIDS is
to modern-day Africa. From human tragedy on the most individual
level up to economic devastation that crosses national boundaries, acquired
immune deficiency syndrome is matching the ferocity of the Black Death . . . .
Twenty-five years from now, no one will remember which pharmaceutical
company was the first to commit itself to finding a way to get essential
AIDS drugs to developing countries. No one will care whether
the effort was coordinated by the United Nations or the United States or little
men from Mars. What people will remember is whether the rich and powerful took a
sword to the Gordian knot of problems keeping AIDS medicine
from poor Africans, or whether they stood by yammering about compulsory
licensing, patent protection and trade restrictions while millions died.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:
To fill up a sport utility vehicle at
the pump these days takes an act of courage. Gasoline prices are back above
$1.27 a gallon from a low of 96 cents a year ago.
The higher cost of
driving SUVs - which now number one out of five automobiles sold - has put a
dark mood over America's love affair with the gas-guzzling road beasts. Since
August, SUV sales have dipped 4 percent.
On that score, the OPEC cartel
may be doing us all a favor. It has restricted its oil output since March, thus
jacking up the price of a barrel of oil by 250 percent and forcing us to rethink
our energy use . . . .
We just wish that it wasn't a cartel forcing
energy discipline on us.
LOAD-DATE: December 15, 1999
