Former US President Calls for Sino-US PartnershipFormer US president Bill Clinton heralded the benefits of globalisation on a visit to Shanghai Thursday. He touched on the need for partnership between Beijing and Washington.Clinton was in Shanghai to address the Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia investment forum and spoke about the need to work towards greater globalisation and alleviate poverty in Third World countries. He said that the US had managed to overcome the difficulties caused by the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and that the US should not make China an adversary. "If we think it's important to have adversaries we will find one and if we think it's important to build an independent world we have a pretty good chance of doing that," he said. However the bulk of Clinton's speech covered broader health and poverty issues and he spoke at length about the AIDS epidemic ravaging Africa. Clinton's talks with President Jiang Zemin in Hong Kong Wednesday lasted more than 70 minutes, during which the two talked about the current difficulties in Sino-US relations following the April 1 plane collision incident. The Washington Post reported that Clinton has conveyed ``some message'' from the Bush administration to Jiang that Bush is in the course of developing and forming his foreign policy, and eventually the two huge countres will find terms to co-exist. However, the White House insisted that Clinton's visit to Hong Kong, on the occasion of the Fortune Global Forum 2001, was solely the business of a "private citizen'', and not bringing any message from Bush. Clinton is due to leave Shanghai on Friday. |
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