White House Brushes Off Notion of Split on China Policy

The Bush administration scrambled Thursday to dispel the idea that its top officials disagreed over policy on military contacts with China.

One day after the Pentagon announced one policy, only to withdraw it after the White House raised questions, President Bush indicated that there was no split among U.S. policymakers.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld “was saying that we’re going to review all opportunities to interface with the Chinese, and if it enhances our relationship, it may make sense,” the president said Thursday. “If it’s a useless exercise and it doesn’t make the relationship any better, then we won’t do that.”

And Secretary of State Colin L. Powell appeared to be trying to smooth over differences--both within the administration and with China--when he said at a hearing on Capitol Hill that the administration was “anxious to get the relationship back on an even keel.”

However, Wednesday’s back-and-forth between agencies fueled speculation in Congress and elsewhere that Rumsfeld had embarked on a solo journey, turning United States policy on a new course regarding China.

One well-placed Pentagon official, speaking privately, offered an account that contradicted the official Defense Department version of what happened Wednesday when officials appeared to back away from continuing routine exchanges between U.S. and Chinese military officers.

The Pentagon said the original policy directive was written by a Rumsfeld aide, Christopher Williams, on the basis of a misunderstanding of the secretary’s intent. But the Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue, said Rumsfeld had intended to break off all contacts between the two militaries.

Williams did not return calls to his office Thursday.

When the White House heard about the memo, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, presidential aides told Pentagon officials that the memorandum “sounds inconsistent with the secretary’s policy.”

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said Thursday that it was “not at all” the case that complaints from the White House or the State Department had led to the rewriting of the memo.

Within hours after the memo was disclosed, the Pentagon said military exchanges would be reviewed case by case. Under existing policy, exchanges had been approved as a group, year by year.

While the policy shift was in the works for some time, it was given a heightened sensitivity April 1 when a U.S. spy plane collided off the coast of China with a Chinese fighter jet. The incident caused the death of the Chinese pilot and led to an 11-day standoff over the release of the American crew.

Quigley said it took several weeks to translate Rumsfeld’s ideas into a policy memo. As early as March, Rumsfeld had told other senior members of the national security policy team what he intended to do, both Fleischer and Quigley said.

On Capitol Hill, several aides said they believed that differences over policy, rather than what officials sought to portray as a clerical error, were at the root of the dispute. The differences may signal increasing disagreement among senior national security officials, they said.

The aides said it was difficult to believe that the Pentagon would issue a policy memo of such importance without carefully vetting it.

The incident also offered a look at Rumsfeld’s views, congressional aides said.

In his three months as secretary, Rumsfeld has rarely shared his policy views. He has not met often with members of Congress, and he has avoided a high-profile role as a foreign affairs spokesman for the administration.

But to some aides in Congress, this incident reinforces the idea that Rumsfeld will hold a hawkish place on the foreign policy team.

Moving to clarify policy, the State Department said Thursday that there was no effort to cut off certain types of contact with China.

“Since the plane incident, we’ve all been looking more carefully at what we should and shouldn’t do. But there’s no interagency directive that is being implemented by all of us. It’s not business as usual, but there’s been no cutoff,” said a senior State Department official, who asked to remain anonymous because of government rules.

He said there would “obviously [be] some contact.”

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Times staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.