SANCTIONS would not be an appropriate measure in Sino-American relations as China continued its rapid growth, the president of the New York-based National Committee on United States-China Relations, Mike Lampton, said yesterday.
Addressing a luncheon in Hong Kong, Mr Lampton said such an approach would endanger the interests of the US.
'A sanctions-based policy will generally fail because our competitors will not follow such a lead and because it simply will feed the more destructive forms of nationalism in China and within the region,' Mr Lampton said.
'No American leader can ignore China's economic potential and leave that growing market to the tender economic mercies of competitors in Japan, Europe and in this region,' he said.
Mr Lampton said that future American foreign policy should focus more on co-operation be based on the assumption that China would succeed.
'We should do what we can to smooth China's way to full and equal participation in the global community. And China's success is to be greatly preferred over its failure,' he said.
