d ensuring continuing UN Security Council endorsement (a forum where China enjoys veto authority). President Jiang also expressed support for the establishment of a medium- and long-term mechanism for anti-terrorism cooperation between China and the U.S. However, little in the way of useful, operationally-oriented intelligence information sharing has yet to materialize and China seems most intent on ensuring that any international war on terrorism includes condemnation of Islamic Uighur separatists in China's western Xinjiang province. Washington seems somewhat more sympathetic (or at least tolerant) toward China's terrorist concerns (and similar Russian concerns over Islamic separatist activity in Chechnya), although here Bush had a caveat of his own: ``The war on terrorism,'' Bush asserted in Shanghai, ``must never be an excuse to persecute minorities.'' (This is a message Bush has also delivered at home, aimed at preventing a backlash against America's Muslim community.) Secretary of State Colin Powell (nicely echoing a sentiment expressed previously in this column) noted in Shanghai that, as far as U.S.-Russian relations were concerned, ``not only is the Cold War over, the post-Cold War period is also over.'' Meanwhile, Sino-U.S. relations still seem largely mired in what the Chinese have described in another context as a ``Cold War mentality,'' with both sides apparently willing to settle for considerably less. As Presidents Bush and Putin start working toward the establishment of a post post-Cold War new world order, Beijing increasingly runs the risk of being left behind. ...
