The new US administration of President George W. Bush has not changed policy toward China, a spokesman said Thursday as a row raged with Beijing over its crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual group.
Hours after China told Washington to stop interfering in its internal affairs, Richard Boucher, state department spokesman, said the US attitude to China remained consistent under new Secretary of State Colin Powell.
China's foreign ministry bristled on Thursday, a day after Boucher reiterated Washington's appeal for restraint after Beijing renewed its crackdown on the banned spiritual group.
In his confirmation hearings last week before the US Senate, Powell described US-Sino ties as "a very important relationship for the United States," Boucher said.
"But ... he said that we would have to deal with the issues of human rights and rule of law that are also an important part of the relationship."
Powell made his approach clear in a meeting with China's ambassador in Washington on Wednesday, said Boucher.
Washington's US approach to China is being closely watched here and in Asia for any evidence the new administration is taking a tougher line on the communist giant.
During his campaign, President George W. Bush pledged to take a less conciliatory tone towards China than that adopted by former president Bill Clinton, who hoped that in the future Beijing would be a "strategic partner."
But Boucher insisted that although a new secretary of state might adopt a different approach -- the fundamental basis of the relationship was unchanged.
"So it's his approach, so yes, it's different. But ... it's based on the basis of the relationship that has sustained itself through successive administrations over time," he said.
Those fundamentals had evolved under former presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and "everybody in between, and subsequently," Boucher said.
Chinese foreign ministry Zhu Bangzao (
"China demands the US government ... stop interfering in China's internal affairs on the excuse of Falun Gong, so as to avoid harming Sino-US relations," Zhu said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Zhu was responding to comments by Boucher after five members of the mystical group set themselves alight in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Tuesday in protest against state repression.
"I would renew our condemnation of China's crackdown on Falun Gong," Boucher said.
In response, Zhu said Falun Gong was not a religious group, but "an anti-human, anti-society and anti-science evil cult that keeps cheating and harming the people and has seriously endangered the society."
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