Washington told to sell fewer weapons - Taiwan - China

RADICAL PROPOSAL?: The former head of Russia's military missile-strategy team says Washington should cut arms-sales to decrease tensions between China and Taiwan.

A senior Russian military strategist has proposed that Russia and the US reach an agreement to mutually reduce arms sales to China and Taiwan to help reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait and, by implication, in East Asia.

Victor Esin, a retired three-star general and former head of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, made the suggestion in a conference in Washington on how Washington and Moscow can cooperate in seeking security in Asia.

"We could really reduce tension in the Strait if Russia and the United States could reach an understanding and could agree that we should reduce our sales of weapons to China and to Taiwan if we do it in a parallel way," Esin, who is now a top official of Moscow's Academy for Security, Defense, Law and Order Studies, said at a conference of the Association on Third World Affairs, a Russia-oriented think tank, on Thursday.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/10/05/2003070447

and all those campaign contributions that are bundled by the CEO's so as to have a small average size - each time - over and over again - will perhaps not get to the GOP -

I doubt Bush will treat this as a real offer - you know you can not trust folks that do not want war.