<Kanwa news March 11, 1999> As a Chinese observer of foreign affairs indicated to the KWIC reporter, some courses of action advocated by Tang Jiaxuan in the Chinese foreign policy have been subjected to questioning by some experts in the Chinese Foreign Ministry for a period of time. First of all, most of the Chinese foreign affairs analysts believe that the final result of Jiang Zemin’s visit to Japan was really limited. If proper arrangements and preparations had been made, the visit would have ended up with a greater success. The same source also pointed out that the Chinese Foreign Ministry was very slow in addressing the recent issue of attending Jordanian King Hussein’s funeral. Its reaction was not even as quick as that of the Chinese Xinghua News Agency. As a result, no delegation was sent from China to attend the funeral. In addition, the source stressed that there are different opinions on the issue of TMD inside the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Some experts feel that Taiwan’s participation in the TMD should be treated differently from Japan-US joint development of the TMD and that no blind and inappropriate criticism should be made of the TMD without the true understanding of the issue.

It is generally believed that as the face-saving issue is involved, there exists the slightest possibility that any major adjustments will be made to the current leading group of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the near future only for the problems with Jiang Zemin’s recent visit to Japan< Kanwa news>.

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