By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction for Tuesday, February 16th,1999

The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Will Resume and the "Land for Peace" Wye River Accords Will Be Carried Out AND Relations Between America and China are Going to Take a Turn for the Worse

• On January 25, 1999, I predicted that Clinton would not be convicted in his Senate trial and he will achieve this without having retreated from his controversial Mideast and China policies.

  Last Friday President Clinton was acquitted in his impeachment trial. No outcome is so far publicly evident for the other two predictions. But there are signs that one of the predictions will come true but not the other. Here now are my modified predictions for week one.

• Prediction:
  (1) The Israeli-Palestinian peace process will resume and the "land for peace" Wye River Accords will be carried out.

  (2) Relations between America and China are going to take a turn for the worse. So too relations between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. There is a good chance this could lead to military tensions or worse.

Outcome:

(1) While there are no formal signs that the peace process has resumed, other signs indicate that the Clinton policy is on track. See the Prediction 6 for details.

(2) In terms of China, the first part of the prediction is yes, certainly U.S.-China relations have taken a turn for the worse, though President Clinton is not budging from his China policy.

Evaluation of the second part of the prediction: yes but not a strong yes. The issue of Taiwan joining the U.S.-sponsored Theater Missile Defense (TDM) system and the reports of a PRC missile buildup in Fujian across the Taiwan Straits from Taiwan have increased Cross Straits tensions but not to the point of crisis.