Letter: China is not to be trusted

Monday, Nov. 26, 2001 | 8:52 a.m.

In the movie "Spy Game," a CIA operative (Brad Pitt) is held captive in China after being accused of espionage. His former mentor (Robert Redford) comes to the rescue, and the film follows the two men through Vietnam, Berlin and Beirut, among other hot vacation spots. Retiring CIA agent Redford engineers Pitt's rescue from the Chinese prison under the noses of his CIA associates, who have already declared Pitt dead, because of the story's implied friendly foreign policy of the U.S. toward China.

That was the movie. In the real world, according to the Nov. 4 London Telegraph, state-controlled Chinese media outlets are producing propaganda videos and DVDs "glorifying the (Sept. 11 terrorist) strikes as a humbling blow against an arrogant nation." The propaganda is being mass-produced by the Xinhua information agency, Beijing Television, and China Central Television. As the Telegraph reports: "Communist party officials say President Jiang Zemin has obsessively watched and re-watched pictures of the aircraft crashing into the World Trade Centre."

President Bush, in light of his recent visits to Beijing, has assured the American people that China is a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

FRANK PELTESON