China Recalls Envoy to U.S. as Ties Worsen

Retaliating against the United States for allowing Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to visit last week, China on Friday recalled its ambassador from Washington, sinking U.S.-China relations to the lowest level since the 1989 Tian An Men Square crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

The recall of Ambassador Li Daoyu “to report on his work in view of the current state of Sino-U.S. relations” was announced here in a terse statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang.

Because the Beijing government has so far not accepted the Clinton Administration’s nominee for its ambassador to China, it means that for the first time since establishing diplomatic relations in 1979, both countries are without ambassadors.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said: “We very much regret that the Chinese government has chosen to recall Ambassador Li. We continue to seek a constructive relationship with a strong, stable and open China. We hope that the Chinese government will reconsider this action and return Ambassador Li to his post very soon.”

Burns said the United States considers it significant that China did not say it is downgrading its relations with the United States or that Li had been recalled permanently.

But other U.S. officials were concerned Friday that China might take a further step and refuse to accept the Clinton Administration’s nominee to become the new ambassador to Beijing.

The outgoing U.S. ambassador to China, J. Stapleton Roy, is scheduled to leave for the United States this weekend in a change of assignment that U.S. officials said had nothing to do with the strained state of U.S.-China relations. Roy held final meetings with senior Chinese officials and embassy staff Friday.

“[Roy’s] leaving has nothing to do with relations,” a diplomat said here this morning. “It’s just the end of his tour.”

But Roy, a veteran career diplomat and China specialist--and one of the architects of the policy that, until last week, banned visits by senior Taiwanese officials to the United States--is known to have argued against the Lee visit.

Chinese officials have so far been silent on whether they will accept President Clinton’s nominee to replace him, reportedly former Sen. James Sasser of Tennessee. In keeping with normal diplomatic protocol, the Clinton Administration reportedly submitted Sasser’s name as a proposed replacement to Chinese officials several weeks ago.

By diplomatic tradition, governments have the right to privately accept or reject ambassadors, even before they are formally nominated.

*

The U.S. government had been expecting some form of retaliation for more than a week after the Administration, in a last-minute reversal, decided to let Lee attend a June 9 reunion at Cornell University, where he attended graduate school.

Lee’s four-day visit was overwhelmingly supported by the U.S. Congress. Three U.S. senators, including Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met Lee when he arrived in New York state for the reunion. The visit was the culmination of years of high-pressure lobbying by Taiwan to upgrade its international status.

China has consistently opposed even private visits by senior Taiwan officials as a violation of the agreements signed by the United States and China when they established diplomatic relations in 1979.

Until then, the United States had refused to recognize the Communist government in Beijing as China’s legitimate government. Instead, it had maintained that that legitimacy rested with the Nationalist government that fled into exile on the island of Taiwan when defeated by the Communists in 1949.

*

When that policy was reversed, the United States withdrew recognition of the government in Taiwan, which Beijing maintains is an integral part of China that must someday be reunited politically with the mainland.

Chinese feelings on this issue are so strong that the recall of Ambassador Li is a milder action than some expected. As Chinese rhetoric denouncing Lee’s visit escalated all week, rumors swept through the Chinese capital that the government planned to register its protest by closing one of the U.S. consulates in China.

American business representatives meeting with Chinese trade officials said they were warned of retaliatory economic sanctions.

These actions may still come. But a long report by Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, billed as a major policy statement, stressed the need for continued relations with the United States, China’s biggest market.

The Qian report on foreign affairs, published Friday in the magazine Seeking Truth, condemned the United States for permitting the Lee visit.

“China will not sit by and let any action aimed at splitting itself or obstructing or damaging its reunification [with Taiwan] go unchecked,” Qian wrote.

But in another section of the same report--6,000 words in its English translation--Qian stressed that “above all, the two countries have a general and common interest.”

Times staff writers Jim Mann in Washington and Doyle McManus in Halifax, Canada, contributed to this report.