WASHINGTON -- Peking: Please don't invite Sen. Barry Goldwater to visit your country. He won't come.
The Arizona Republican, a staunch friend of Taiwan, said Thursday there is nothing he and China's leaders have to talk about.
Thus, 'I would decline' any invitation, he said.
'For one solid week,' Goldwater said in a statement, 'I have heard and read reports that communist China has invited me to visit Peking. I have not personally received such an invitation, and if I did, I would decline it.'
'There is nothing we could talk about. They are communists. They deny human rights and economic freedom, and their word cannot be trusted.'
'I have great affection for the Chinese people, their culture, their skills and their potential,' Goldwater said. 'But until there is one free China, I will not visit the mainland.'
Goldwater, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, visited Taiwan during the recent congressional recess -- at the same time that Senate Republican Leader Howard Baker was visiting China
