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
.