U.S. Condemns China’s Taiwan Warning

Diplomatic tensions between the United States and China escalated Tuesday as the State Department summoned the Chinese ambassador for urgent discussions and the Clinton administration warned Beijing against trying to unify Taiwan with the mainland by force.

“The U.S. government rejects any use of force or any threat of force in this situation,” White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said. “If they were to take action which would try to resolve the issue between China and Taiwan through force, we’d view that with grave concern.”

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin used similar language in briefing reporters later in the day.

The sharp reaction in Washington followed the release Monday of a major policy paper by China warning Taiwan that “indefinitely” delaying talks about reunifying with the Chinese mainland could lead to an armed attack. Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province.

The document, apparently months in the making, also called on the United States to cut back on its sale of arms to Taiwan. China analysts here view the toughly worded paper as a crude attempt on the part of Beijing to influence Taiwan’s presidential election March 18.

“In its way, this is a paper equivalent of a missile test,” said Robert L. Suettinger, a former senior White House advisor on China policy, referring to the test missiles Beijing fired into waters off Taiwan in 1996 in hopes of intimidating voters before the island’s first direct presidential election.

“What they are trying to do is get the attention of the Taiwanese audience,” he said. “They want to say this vote is important, that it’s going to affect relations with the mainland.”

In the past, Beijing has threatened to reunify Taiwan by force if the government in Taipei formally declares independence or if there were to be any attempt by foreign forces to stop reunification. But Monday’s policy paper was the first time China said, in an authoritative statement, that it might also use force if Taiwan refuses to negotiate.

Suettinger noted, however, that the paper also contains some positive indications. As examples, he cited statements that parties to any Beijing-Taipei dialogue should be treated as equals, that there was no limit to the subjects to be discussed and no unilaterally imposed deadlines.

Taiwan’s relationship to the mainland is one of the major issues in the island’s election campaign, with all three main candidates now taking relatively conciliatory positions on the future of relations with Beijing.

None, however, has endorsed China’s position that Taiwan’s future should be settled under the same formula of “one country, two systems” that was applied to Hong Kong and Macao when those foreign colonies returned to China’s sovereignty in the last three years.

China’s ambassador to the United States, Li Zhaoxing, met with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott for 30 minutes Tuesday. A State Department official said that Talbott stressed U.S. concerns about the contents of the Beijing report.

The developments come in the wake of a visit of senior Clinton administration officials to Beijing that reportedly did not go well. One indicator of that visit is that the U.S. delegation was given no prior notice of the policy paper, which was released only hours after the Americans’ departure.

On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans cited the paper as one more sign of the administration’s failure to deal effectively with Beijing.

Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, accused China of trying to intimidate Taiwan, though he focused most of his criticism on the administration.

“The administration’s policy of accommodation toward Beijing is proving to be ineffective and is destabilizing the region,” Gilman said. “A firmer stance toward Beijing is required.”

Even some Democrats appeared unsettled by the lack of a stronger administration response. At a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) chastised Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth for urging both Taiwan and China to use restraint in the current climate.

“I was a little disappointed in your comment today,” Kerry said. “The white paper comments are unacceptable.”