Sino-U.S. Era of Good Feeling Fades : Diplomacy: Chinese foreign minister delivers litany of complaints. Two weeks ago, Clinton and Jiang had pronounced ties on the mend.

Two weeks after the United States and China proclaimed their bruised relationship was on the mend, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan renewed his government’s complaints Thursday, turning a joint news conference with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright into a showcase of continuing friction.

Brushing aside conciliatory gestures by Albright, Tang said the United States was endangering peaceful cooperation by accusing China of espionage, refusing to condemn a “separatist” policy pursued by Taiwan and failing to come clean about the May bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

None of the complaints was new. But Washington, at least, thought President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin had put all that behind them at a friendly meeting earlier this month in New Zealand.

Albright opened the news conference by saying her objective in holding talks with Tang at the United Nations, where both are attending the opening of the General Assembly, was to “build on the successful meeting between President Clinton and President Jiang.”

But Tang made it clear that China continues to harbor strong grievances.

He said Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui’s suggestion in July that China should conduct its relations with Taiwan on a special “state-to-state basis” has had “a serious impact on the relationship between China and the United States.”

China considers Taiwan a rebel province.

“We hope the United States will face up to the dangerous nature of his separatist remarks squarely and do nothing to puff him up,” Tang said. “For instance, no arms should be sold to Taiwan.”

He said Lee is “a major obstacle to the continued sound development of the [Sino-U.S.] relationship.”

Paradoxically, Tang’s criticism of the United States’ approach to Taiwan came only a few days after U.S. representatives told a U.N. committee that the United States opposes Taiwanese membership in the world organization. In the past, the United States has remained silent on the issue during an annual U.N. debate.

And in her response to Tang, Albright said cryptically: “We have stated the three noes.” Although she did not explain, the secretary was referring to Clinton’s June 1998 statement in Shanghai that the U.S. opposes a “two-China” policy, Taiwan’s independence and the island’s membership in any organization where statehood is a requirement.

Tang also was uncompromising when he reiterated China’s refusal to accept the U.S. explanation that the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed by mistake during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia.

“We cannot accept the explanation offered by the U.S. government until now saying it was a mistake,” Tang said. “The U.S. side is obliged to . . . offer a more satisfactory explanation.”

Albright replied: “I can’t make up a story that isn’t true. I can only repeat the true story that it was a mistake.”

A senior State Department official said later that China may be keeping the embassy bombing issue alive in the hopes of using it for leverage in negotiations with Washington about China’s request for membership in the World Trade Organization. But the official said Washington will not link the two issues.

The United States last month sent a payment of $4.5 million to compensate the 27 Chinese injured in the bombing and the families of the three who were killed. Officials said this was a “humanitarian” gesture that contained no admission of legal responsibility.

The two governments are negotiating their cross-claims: China wants compensation for the damage to its building, whereas the United States is seeking compensation for damage to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing caused by demonstrators angered by the Belgrade bombing.

On the day after the FBI said it was broadening its investigation of allegations that China spied on U.S. nuclear laboratories, Tang said that those making the accusations were at fault.

“It is extremely irresponsible and false,” he said, “to say that China has had espionage activities in the United States.”