U.S. Diplomat Seeks Chinese Cooperation

WASHINGTON — A senior Bush Administration expert on Asia arrived in Beijing on Saturday for a hastily arranged visit aimed primarily at seeking Chinese cooperation in an international arms embargo against Iraq.

The official, Assistant Secretary of State Richard H. Solomon, also will brief Chinese officials about the meeting last week in the Siberian city of Irkutsk at which Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze served notice of their desire for unprecedented U.S.-Soviet cooperation in Asia, U.S. officials said.

Solomon’s mission indicates that the United States is seeking both to enlist China’s support against Iraq and, at the same time, to reassure the Chinese regime that it need not feel threatened by the closeness with which U.S. and Soviet officials are now working together.

“The Chinese are big players, and they ought to be in on these decisions,” one Administration official said.

“We probably would have thought about doing this (sending an emissary to Beijing) anyway, but (the Iraqi invasion of) Kuwait put it over the edge,” the official said. “You can’t have a situation where you appear to be working only with the Soviets. You’ve got to include China in the action here.”

Although the Soviet Union and France have been Iraq’s two leading arms suppliers, China also provides significant amounts of arms and military equipment to Baghdad. In addition, China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and its cooperation would be necessary to pass any council resolution imposing sanctions against Iraq.

Asked two days ago whether China might go along with an arms embargo against Iraq, Solomon told The Times, “The Chinese are going to have to decide how isolated in the world they want to be.”

Shevardnadze told a news conference Friday night in Moscow that the Soviet Union had not been in direct contact with China concerning the international efforts against Iraq. U.S. officials at the time declined to say whether they had talked with Chinese officials, but made clear they expected to do so.

Solomon accompanied Baker during the secretary’s just-completed visit to Asia, including the meetings in Irkutsk, at which Baker and Shevardnadze spoke of the importance of having Washington and Moscow work together in Asia on Cambodia, Afghanistan and other issues.

On Friday night, while Baker stopped in Moscow for an emergency meeting on the situation in Iraq, Solomon left the secretary’s entourage to catch a flight to Beijing.

Solomon is the highest-ranking Administration official to visit China since National Security Adviser Brent A. Scowcroft made two secret trips to Beijing last year.

Officially, the Administration still maintains the policy it adopted after China’s 1989 crushing of its pro-democracy movement. The United States has banned “exchanges” with China by any officials at the level of assistant secretary or higher.

However, the Administration has explained that it defines exchanges narrowly as meaning a reciprocal trading of visits between Beijing and Washington.

One senior Administration official said he is quite hopeful that China will join the U.S.-Soviet arms embargo and other international efforts against Iraq.

“My guess is that the Chinese will be cooperative,” he said. “The Chinese generally don’t like it when one country invades another country. They really got mad at us over (the U.S. invasion of) Panama” last December.

However, over the past decade, China has carried out an extremely active effort to develop close friendships in the Middle East. A willingness to supply low-cost weaponry has been the key ingredient in China’s diplomatic effort. China made huge arms deliveries to both sides in the Iran-Iraq war.

Over the past three years, U.S. officials have been extremely concerned about the possibility that China would supply newly produced M-9 missiles to several countries in the Middle East, including Iraq. The missile is still believed to be in the development stage.