his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, clearly has done. While the Bush-Jiang meeting was described as ``cordial'' and ``friendly,'' the personal chemistry exhibited from the onset between Bush and Putin was nowhere to be found. In Shanghai, Bush and Putin took advantage of their third face-to-face meeting to move U.S.-Russian relations even closer _ one Russian diplomat described the meeting as creating favorable conditions for ``forming a new framework for strategic relations'' between Washington and Moscow. President Putin sent strong signals that Russia is ready to modify or ``stretch'' the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)Treaty to address U.S. security concerns. His flexibility was quickly rewarded by Washington's announcement on October 25 that it was delaying testing of those elements of its missile defense system that could violate the Treaty. Meanwhile, both sides also seemed closer to an agreement over deeper cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals; an arms control breakthrough likely to be formally announced during Putin's visit to Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch in November. China, by contrast, remains generally inflexible on the issue of missile defense and clearly disappointed Washington by its unwillingness to break the standoff over implementation of a non-proliferation agreement signed with the Clinton administration last year. This is not to say that Washington was dissatisfied with the outcome of the Jiang summit. The Bush team also had relatively low expectations regarding what could be accomplished.But they did appear genuinely disappointed. While Bush did receive a Chinese endorsement of his war against terrorism and a commitment from Beijing to cooperate on stemming financial flows to terrorists, Jiang avoided endorsing the on-going Afghanistan campaign and felt compelled to repeatedly stress his caveats about avoiding innocent casualties _ an American objective, but one that is impossible to 100 percent achieve _ an...
