Zhu Speaks Sternly but Carries an Olive Branch

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Wednesday forcefully warned Taiwan not to risk war by indefinitely delaying reunification with the mainland, but he held out the possibility of concessions by Beijing in any negotiations aimed at bringing the two sides together.

Zhu said that anything will be up for discussion as long as Taiwan’s new president, to be picked by the island’s voters Saturday, hews to the formula that there is only “one China” encompassing both mainland and island.

“Whoever stands for ‘one China’ will receive our support, and we can have talks with him, talks that can cover anything,” Zhu said. “There can also be concessions on our part--concessions made to fellow Chinese.”

But he issued a stern warning that “whoever pursues Taiwan independence will not come to a good end,” and he said China is prepared to use its military muscle to retake the island it considers a rebel province.

“The Chinese people will use their blood and even sacrifice their lives to defend the dignity of the motherland,” he said, raising his voice at a news conference in Beijing’s imposing Great Hall of the People. The event marked the close of this year’s session of the rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress.

The news conference was Zhu’s third annual meeting with domestic and foreign media since he was tapped to become premier two years ago. By turns deadpan, scolding and forthright, he showed the engaging style that has made him a popular figure in China and abroad, but he exhibited none of the exuberance that marked his first news conference nor the glumness he displayed at last year’s event, when he was forced to admit that his ambitious agenda of reforms had run into major obstacles.

On Wednesday, questions about Taiwan dominated the forum, although Zhu also spoke in broad terms about battling corruption, developing China’s poverty-stricken interior and joining the World Trade Organization.

He toed the Communist Party line on Sino-Taiwanese relations, invoking ancient history as he claimed the island as part of China’s rightful territory.

But for the first time, Zhu specifically blamed Taipei for provoking Beijing to issue its latest warning against delaying reunification, a threat enshrined in a white paper released by Beijing last month. He cited outgoing Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui’s declaration last summer that relations between the two rivals were as between two states, which seemed to junk the “one China” principle.

“If the two-states theory had not been dished out, then the white paper might not have been issued,” Zhu said.

Trying to contain the furor that the white paper has touched off in the West--and that some say caught Beijing by surprise--Zhu denied that the recent warning represented a shift in Chinese policy. He said that since the 1980s, China has included foot-dragging by Taiwan as cause for resorting to force, in addition to a Taiwanese declaration of independence or a foreign invasion.

“There’s nothing new,” he said.

He declined to lay out a timetable for talks on reunification to occur, sticking to Beijing’s strategy of keeping the military option as a card up its sleeve. Few analysts, however, think China is capable yet of mounting a successful invasion of the island, despite Zhu’s admonition not to underestimate the determination of the People’s Liberation Army.

He also appeared to downplay the chance of a rerun of China’s missile-lobbing intimidation tactics four years ago, when Taiwan held its first-ever direct presidential election.

“Just wait and see. Be patient. There are only [three] days left” before the election, Zhu said in a humorous tone, eliciting laughter from his audience.

With an eye to the surging popularity of presidential contender Chen Shui-bian--whose party has advocated Taiwanese independence in the past--Zhu issued a blunt warning to voters to steer clear of Chen.

“The people of Taiwan are standing at a very critical juncture in history. Let me advise Taiwan’s people not to act on pure impulse at this juncture, which will decide the future course that Taiwan and China will follow,” Zhu said. “Otherwise, I’m afraid you won’t have another opportunity to regret it.”

Campaigning in southern Taiwan on Wednesday, Chen said voters won’t be intimidated and won’t reunify with China under Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula.

“Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country. It’s not a part of the People’s Republic of China,” Chen said, according to Associated Press.

Zhu, at his news conference, also blasted “anti-Chinese” forces in the U.S. as well as “splittists” inside Taiwan for fomenting opposition to reunification.

The official military newspaper devoted its entire front page Wednesday to lambasting U.S. policy toward Taiwan, blaming the United States for “poking its nose” into the Taiwan issue and “stirring up trouble.”

In another message to Washington, Zhu made a push for U.S. congressional approval of permanent normal trade relations with China. Failure to do so, he said, would make the U.S. regret its lost opportunity “hundreds or thousands of years” from now.

Zhu, the chief architect of China’s economic reforms, pledged to press ahead on a number of fronts, from restructuring China’s financial sector to introducing legislation to regulate China’s growing but often chaotic Internet industry.

He acknowledged that corruption remains a deeply rooted problem in China. But he claimed progress in battling smuggling, and made the first public reference by a high-ranking official to a massive smuggling scandal unfolding in the southern port city of Xiamen.

“Some magazines and newspapers have ranked the Chinese government as the most corrupt, but I don’t for a moment think this is true,” Zhu said. “Of course there are more corruption cases in China, because there are more people in China” than in other countries.

Zhu even gave a passing nod to the idea of political reform. Asked when China would expand its village elections to higher echelons of government, eventually up to the national level, he said, “The sooner the better.”