Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-07-Speech-4-166"
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"en.20000907.7.4-166"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced, once again, with an exemplary case. The text on Burma, unfortunately the umpteenth one, is very good. The situation in Burma is crystal clear; there is a perfect dictatorship on the one side and an exemplary opposition on the other. There has, in fact, been no sign of progress in this country for ten years. That is the situation. So I think we should ask ourselves a few questions.
Our policy towards Asia is a criminal policy; it is quite literally criminal. We treat regimes such as India, which continue to consolidate and strengthen democracy, however difficult that may be, on the same footing as other countries like China, Burma and North Korea, which, you could say, do all they can to strengthen dictatorship.
So, I think we should consider drawing up lists, defining categories and establishing different types of relations depending on the type of country. Unfortunately that is not the case. The European Parliament has been calling for this for a long time and we must continue to urge it. We cannot continue to dialogue with organisations such as ASEAN and pretend that we regard them as a homogenous whole. ASEAN is simply a grouping of totally different countries, with widely diverging interests and no prospect of integration. We must encourage forms of integration based on democracy – which is absolutely not the case with this kind of country – and therefore promote and encourage our bilateral relations with the countries that respect democracy and want to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, and pursue an extremely tough policy towards countries like Burma.
Let me finish by saying that Burma is a country now occupied by the People’s Republic of China. We are informed by many sources that there are dozens of Chinese military bases in Burma. The People’s Republic of China is currently encircling India: that is a real fact, an actual fact. You are aware of the situation in Pakistan. The People’s Republic of China’s strategic aid to the rearmament and strengthening of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is a form of encirclement and if, in the course of the twentieth century, the major world problem was the German problem, the Franco-German problem, today and tomorrow too it will be an Indo-Chinese problem; and if we do not, as of now, support the countries that are moving towards democracy, towards strengthening democracy, such as India, but instead continue to roll out the red carpet for the Beijing authorities, we will simply be encouraging a grouping that will eventually become explosive. The explosion will hit not just Asia, but in the end will also affect Europe and the European Union."@en1
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