China issued a key defence document today which offered no hope of any breakthrough in ties with Taiwan, saying the cross-strait situation was ''grim and complicated''. A doom-laden assessment in the ''white paper'' issued by the state council, or cabinet, said tension caused by pro-independence agitation on Taiwan and US military sales to Taipei threatened peace in the region.
''The Taiwan Straits situation is complicated and grim,'' the document said. It hit out at Taiwan's new leadership for an ''evasive and obscure'' stand on Beijing's key one-china principle, although it did not mention president Chen Shui-Bian by name.
Chen has offered repeatedly to meet Beijing leaders for peace talks, but the cabinet document offered no direct response. It repeated China's longstanding threat to use ''drastic force'' to prevent Taiwan independence or if Taiwan stalled indefinitely on reunification talks. Bureau Report