DATE=7/11/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-WORLD BANK-TIBET (L-O)
NUMBER=2-264298
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: China has lashed out at the United States and
Japan, accusing them of politicizing a controversial
World Bank loan it had hoped would help fund the
resettlement of poor Chinese farmers in a
traditionally ethnic Tibetan area. Correspondent
Roger Wilkison reports Beijing says it will speed up
the resettlement project, despite the loss of World
Bank funding.
TEXT: The World Bank's plan to lend 40-million
dollars to China in support of a poverty alleviation
project in western Qinghai province fell apart last
Friday after China withdrew its loan request. Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi - speaking through
an interpreter - says the United States and Japan
wanted to attach, what he calls - political conditions
to the loan.
/// INTERPRETER ACT ///
Unfortunately the project failed approval
because some developed countries, especially the
United States and Japan, raised unreasonable
demands and erected all sorts of obstacles for
political reasons in violation of the articles
of agreement of the World Bank. The Chinese
government strongly opposes politicizing the
activities of the World Bank. Any attempt to
obstruct the implementation of the project is
doomed to failure.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Sun did not spell out what those political
conditions he blamed for the loan request's failure
were. But the project has been dogged by controversy.
An independent report commissioned by the World Bank's
board found that the institution broke many of its own
rules in processing the loan to China, its biggest
borrower.
The loan was approved last year despite U-S and German
objections. It was criticized as contributing to what
some critics called "cultural genocide" because the
project aims at resettling ethnic-Chinese farmers on
lands inhabited primarily by Tibetan and Mongolian
herders. The critics say the plan will hurt the
environment and dilute Tibetan culture in the region.
China says the project is aimed at helping poor people
of all ethnic groups in the region shake off poverty
and that it has the support of everyone in the region.
Spokesman Sun says Beijing will speed up the
resettlement effort in the poor, isolated area.
/// INTERPRETER ACT TWO ///
The Chinese government has decided to use its
own funds to implement the Qinghai poverty
reduction project in its own way. The
determination of the Chinese government to speed
up its poverty reduction efforts will never
waver.
/// END ACT ///
Western diplomats in Beijing say, now that the project
is no longer under any kind of international
supervision, China could move more ethnic Chinese into
the area than the World-Bank plan originally
estimated. (SIGNED)
NEB/HK/RW/JO/RAE
11-Jul-2000 08:36 AM EDT (11-Jul-2000 1236 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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