China Seeks to Check Taiwan in U.S. Talks

China is dispatching its top foreign policy official to Washington next month in an apparent bid to talk the Bush administration out of approving new weapons for Taiwan during its first months in office.

Vice Premier Qian Qichen’s visit has not been announced, but a senior administration official confirmed it this week in response to a Times query. Qian’s trip will represent the first high-level contact between China and the new administration.

Qian’s visit will take place as China, Taiwan and each government’s American supporters are girding for the first test of President Bush’s China policy: a decision this spring on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

China has made it plain that it will view the decision on arms sales as the first indication of whether its ties with the administration will be smooth or confrontational.

Some Chinese have predicted an especially strong reaction from Beijing if the Bush team gives Taiwan advanced Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with Aegis air-defense and combat-management systems. China claims that these Aegis-equipped destroyers could be used as a platform for theater missile defenses.

In the past two years, the Clinton administration had rebuffed Taiwan’s request for the Aegis system. But there is strong support in Congress, particularly among Republicans, for allowing Taiwan to buy advanced U.S. military hardware.

Members of Bush’s foreign policy team had initially suggested that they wanted to deal first with America’s neighbors and close allies and then China and Russia. Qian’s trip will mean a departure from that strategy, but its timing is dictated by the calendar: Every April, Washington decides what arms systems Taiwan will be allowed to buy.

“I think they want to be in [Washington] early enough to have an influence on the arms sales decision,” said Bonnie Glaser, a Washington consultant who reports on the views of the Chinese regime.

According to administration officials, China broached the possibility of a March visit by Qian when outgoing Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing met with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last week.

During his campaign for the White House, Bush pledged that “we will help Taiwan defend itself” but gave no further explanation.

Beijing regularly objects in principle to all arms sales to Taiwan, which it considers Chinese territory. China also says any major arms sales would violate a 1982 communique in which the United States promised to freeze, and eventually reduce, the quality and quantity of arms sold to Taiwan. Qian is expected to raise these objections anew during his trip.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) is circulating a letter to colleagues that will call on the administration to approve sales of advanced destroyers and radar this year.

“We should get this over with now, rather than let the decision hang out over the next few years,” said a congressional Republican staff member. “I do expect that the Pentagon is going to come down strongly in favor of a robust package [of arms] for Taiwan. I think there’s going to be a battle royal within the administration on this issue.”

China has been increasing its missile deployments in coastal areas near Taiwan. “There are many people who think [that the new administration] ought to be tough at the outset,” Glaser said, “and let the Chinese know that we are seriously worried about their buildup.”

But the Chinese government has begun to argue that the administration should hold off for a year on any decisions about Taiwan arms sales, to avoid rancor before Bush talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The two leaders are expected to meet for the first time when Bush travels to Shanghai in October.

Chinese officials have repeatedly claimed that because the Aegis system would require a close working cooperation between American and Taiwan military officials, it would represent, in effect, a revival of the formal security relationship between the two. The U.S. broke its security treaty with Taiwan when it established diplomatic relations with China in 1979.

“If the United States goes ahead with Aegis, China will have a stronger response than it did for [then-Taiwanese President] Lee Teng-hui’s visit in 1995,” asserted one Chinese source familiar with the government’s views.

In 1995, the Clinton administration granted a visa to the Taiwanese leader for an unprecedented trip to the United States. In response, China brought its ambassador home from Washington for “consultations” for several months and, in 1996, initiated a series of missile firings and military exercises near Taiwan.

The Chinese source said that if the Bush administration sold the Aegis system, China might formally recall its ambassador and stage new exercises near Taiwan.

Despite such dire warnings, even some longtime supporters of strong U.S. relations with Beijing believe that recent Chinese policies, including the missile buildup, have changed the dynamics for U.S. decisions on weapon sales to Taiwan.

The Chinese “will try to shift the blame, but their own behavior over the last three or four years has made it very hard for the United States to accept how the Chinese are approaching a whole set of issues,” said Stanford University professor Michel Oksenberg. In addition to China’s missile buildup, he pointed to Beijing’s tough policies in dealing with Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Oksenberg predicted that, despite its protests, China will eventually go along with more arms sales to Taiwan.

“There’ll be a big debate and a big brouhaha, and in the end we’re going to end up with more arms sales [from Bush] than the Clinton folks would have made,” he said. “And there’ll be an element of risk involved.

“But there’s not much the Chinese can do about it. They’re going to huff and puff, but in the final analysis, where can they go?”