Chronologies
US - China
Chronology from Jan 2002 to Mar 2002
: An advance team from China arrives in the U.S. to make preparations for Vice President Hu Jintao’s visit in late April.
: Beijing announces that it will cancel a planned exchange of naval ship visits later this year in retaliation for the Taiwan’s defense minister visit to the U.S.
: CIA Director Tenet delivers testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on the threats facing the U.S., including China.
: China and U.S. hold maritime transportation talks in Beijing.
: China denies permission for the USS Curtis Wilbur, a U.S. Navy destroyer, to make a routine port call in Hong Kong April 5-9.
: Chinese Vice FM Li Zhaoxing summons Ambassador Randt to protest the visit by Taiwan DM Tang to the U.S.
: China, the world’s largest steel maker, files a complaint to the WTO against the United States’ decision to impose tariffs of up to 30 percent on steel imports to protect its producers.
: All 18 Congressional members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China, mandated by Congress as a result of passing permanent normal trade relations, sign a letter to President Bush requesting that he support a resolution condemning China’s human rights practices at the UN Human Rights Commission meeting opening March 18 in Geneva.
: The Information Office of the State Council of the PRC releases its annual report on the human-rights record of the U.S.
: Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi says that Beijing is “deeply shocked” over reports that the Nuclear Posture Review, delivered by the U.S. Defense Department to Congress last January, outlined the possible use of nuclear weapons against seven countries including China.
: U.S.-Taiwan nongovernmental business meeting in Florida. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly meet informally with Taiwan’s DM Tang and Chief of the General Staff Li Chien.
: U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt is summoned to the Chinese Foreign Ministry to hear “serious representations” from Assistant Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong regarding the U.S. decision to grant Taiwan Defense Minister Tang Yiau-ming an entry visa to attend a conference in the United States.
: Liu Jieyi, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, meets with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Avis Bohlen and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation John Wolf.
: Forty-two legislators submit House Resolution 357 calling on the Bush administration to recognize the authorities of Tibet who are currently exiled in Dharamsala, India, as the legitimate representatives of Tibet if those Tibetans in exile and the Beijing regime do not sign an agreement that provides for the political autonomy of Tibet within three years.
: The Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor releases the annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices in China, Hong Kong, and Macao.
: Presidents Jiang and Bush exchange messages to commemorate the 30th anniversary of signing the U.S.-China Shanghai Communiqué.
: President George W. Bush lands in Beijing on a 30-hour “working visit” during which he meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji; Presidents Bush and Jiang Zemin hold a joint press conference following their first session of talks. Bush delivers a speech at Qinghua University and visits the Great Wall of China.
: About 24 U.S. generals and admirals travel to Beijing as part of the Capstone program for new flag officers. The officers visit the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University and a PLA military base.
: Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and Congressman Doug Bereuter (R-NE), the chairman and co-chairman, respectively, of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, hold the first hearing of the commission. The theme of the inaugural hearing is “Human Rights in the Context of the Rule of Law.”
: In his annual presentation to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of the CIA’s estimate of threats to U.S. national security, CIA Director George Tenet warns Congress that over the past year China has increasingly honed its operational military skills to be better prepared to deal with possible military action in the Taiwan Strait and to deter the U.S. from defending Taiwan in case of a mainland attack.
: Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing visits the U.S to make preparations for Bush’s China tour. Cui Tiankai, director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Policy Planning Department, holds consultations with his counterpart Richard Haass during the visit.
: President Bush reports to Congress that it is in the national interest of the U.S. to terminate the suspensions under section 902 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act insofar as such suspensions pertain to the export of defense articles or defense services in support of efforts by the government of Japan to destroy Japanese chemical weapons abandoned during World War II in China. License requirements remain in place for these exports and require review and approval on a case-by-case basis by the United States government.
: China frees Liu Yaping, an U.S. resident, from detention in the province of Inner Mongolia. Liu, a permanent U.S. resident businessman, had been held without trial for more than a year.
: Ngawang Choephel, a 34-year old Tibetan music scholar serving an 18-year sentence for spying, is released from prison on medical parole and allowed to fly to the U.S. He reportedly suffers from hepatitis and pulmonary bronchitis and had served about six years of his sentence.
: Financial Times and The Washington Post report that 27 listening devices were found hidden on President Jiang Zemin’s refitted Boeing 767.
: President George W. Bush waives sanctions imposed by his father against China following the 1989 crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square to permit the export of a bomb containment and disposal unit to the Shanghai fire department.
: Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government signs an agreement with China’s Qinghua University and the Development Research Center of the State Council to train 300 high-ranking Chinese officials over the next five years.
: The U.S. imposes sanctions on three Chinese entities found to be in violation of the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. The three PRC firms accused of supplying Iran with materials used to make chemical and biological weapons are Liyang Chemical Equipment Company, the China Machinery and Electric Equipment Import and Export Company, and an individual broker and agent named as Q.C. Chen.
: Zhou Mingwei, deputy head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, arrives in the U.S. for a week-long visit; he attends a conference in New York and holds consultations with U.S. officials in Washington, D.C.
: Loral Space & Communications Ltd., under federal investigation since 1997 for allegedly passing sensitive missile technology to China, agrees to pay $14 million as part of a civil settlement that will allow it to resume shipping satellites and other high-technology gear to that country.
: President Jiang Zemin meets with a delegation led by Rep. Donald Manzullo, chairman of the U.S.-China Inter-Parliamentary Exchange Group of the U.S. House of Representatives.