U.S. Acts to Mend Its China Fences : Administration’s Moves During Wu Visit Called Symbolic

As Air Force Gen. Jon A. Reynolds, the senior defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in China, was preparing to leave Beijing to return to Washington early this year, Chinese officials scheduled the customary farewell banquet for him--and then abruptly canceled it.

Instead, Reynolds was summoned to a meeting at which Xu Xin, deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, sternly lectured him about the deteriorating state of Chinese-American relations. Xu complained about U.S. restrictions on the export of high technology to China and about last December’s expulsion from the United States of two Chinese diplomats who were said to have engaged in spying.

Although U.S. officials say China did not ask that Reynolds be recalled, he left on short notice--several months ahead of schedule.

The private rebuke to the American military official, coupled with other, similar Chinese complaints about U.S. policy toward China, had an impact in Washington. This week, during a visit here by Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian, the Reagan Administration made a concerted effort to mend fences with China and to foster the public perception that the ties between the two countries dating back to the Richard M. Nixon Administration remain strong.

A ‘Cordial Relationship’

“We have a very cordial relationship between our two countries, and we want to continue it,” President Reagan said Tuesday after meeting with Wu at the White House.

Maintaining the impression that the United States is on good terms with China, which has the world’s largest army, is important to the Reagan Administration as the President prepares for further negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev this spring. The aura of good will tends to increase the Soviets’ incentive for restraining aggressive behavior and, in the short term, completing agreements on mutual nuclear weapons reductions.

At the same time, Gorbachev has been working hard to upgrade his own country’s ties with China. U.S. officials say they would not be surprised if China and the Soviet Union initiate an exchange of visits by their foreign ministers within the next year--it would be the first exchange of its kind in two decades. A Reagan Administration official said this week that any such high-level meetings could be seen as China’s reward for a Soviet withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan.

Administration actions toward China during Wu’s visit were mainly symbolic, with little immediate or practical effect.

The State Department announced that it was lifting the freeze imposed last October on the liberalization of high-technology exports to China--items such as telecommunications and computer equipment.

The freeze was imposed in retaliation for China’s supplying Silkworm anti-ship missiles to Iran. This week, Reagan Administration officials said that China had given assurances that it has acted to stop the supply of Silkworms to Iran.

However, American executives active in promoting trade between the United States and China maintain that the new action by the Reagan Administration may not change things very much.

“I’m not sure how much really happened here,” said Roger Sullivan, director of the National Committee for U.S.-China Trade. “I hope there turns out to be more to this than I believe there is.”

The rules governing what high technology can be exported to China are established by an interagency group composed of representatives of the State, Defense and Commerce departments and the CIA.

By last October, Sullivan said, these agencies had reached agreement on a proposed new set of principles to liberalize high-technology exports to China. Exactly what the new rules would have done has never been made public.

This week’s action by the Reagan Administration requires that the interagency group begin discussions again over the rules for exports to China, thus giving elements of the U.S. bureaucracy that favor restrictions on exports to China a new opportunity to resist changes.

“The Pentagon never wanted to go ahead with this (the proposed new rules) in the first place,” according to Sullivan, who was formerly a China expert at the State Department. “They were using the Silkworms as a pretext. There was a lot of disagreement within this Administration over whether to do this at all. Now, we (U.S. companies seeking to export to China) have got to go back and fight this whole interagency process all over again.”

A State Department official said Friday that, contrary to Sullivan’s contention, there was no final agreement within the Administration last fall on a package of new export rules for China. He said the Administration’s action this week restores the situation to what it was last October. It is theoretically possible, he said, that some liberalized rules or principles that had been settled among the federal agencies last October can now be reopened.

The other specific step this week to show improved Sino-American relations was a public announcement that American Peace Corps volunteers might go to China. But this action, too, amounted to less than it seemed.

Peace Corps Tentative

The State Department said Tuesday night that the two countries had agreed to “explore” the creation of a Peace Corps program. Wu said Wednesday that China had agreed “in principle” to accept such a program and would have “a positive attitude” toward the idea.

In China, an “agreement in principle” is an expression that means there is no final agreement. It indicates China has merely said it is willing to consider a proposal and might eventually reject it. In recent years, the United States and China have agreed to discuss some other eye-catching proposals that were eventually shelved.

To preserve the appearance of close relations with China, the Administration was obliged to withhold criticism of China as the leading supplier of arms to Iran and, in effect, to give a green light to that flow.

China sent Iran an estimated $600 million in artillery, ammunition, missiles and other equipment in 1987, according to U.S. intelligence officials, and the level of such arms sales increased this year.

The United States continues to maintain a policy of seeking to stop the flow of arms to the Tehran regime, and on the final day of Wu’s visit a senior Reagan Administration official was asked at a press briefing whether the Administration approves of China’s arms sales to Iran.

Silkworms the Main Concern

“It’s not just fine with us. We don’t like it. But it’s being done,” the official said. “But we are particularly concerned about those (Silkworm) missiles, which are capable of striking American ships and causing American casualties. Those are the ones that we zero in on.”

During a meeting with Reagan, Wu, echoing previous Chinese statements, promised to support an arms embargo against Iran in the future if “an overwhelming majority” of the members of the U.N. Security Council agrees to the idea.

The desire to repair U.S. relations with China also required the Reagan Administration to go to considerable lengths to avoid offending Chinese sensibilities about Tibet, although a new wave of anti-Chinese rioting had broken out there only two days before Wu’s visit here.

A State Department spokesman Monday voiced concern about the human rights situation in Tibet but quickly added that the United States considers Tibet to be part of China. President Reagan, who often voices concern about human rights problems in Communist countries, did not raise the subject during his meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, officials said.

“There’s no question of the Administration taking a position opposite to China (on Tibet’s political status),” a Reagan Administration official said. He said the Administration’s general approach this week was that “we wanted to get (U.S.-China relations) out of this stall, to get things moving again.”

A Chinese official said that this week’s talks “helped to clear up many issues.” Wu, he said, “seems to be very happy with the visit.”