War Tops Bush Trip Agenda

President Bush intends to tell the leaders of Russia, China and other Asian nations that he supports their anti-terrorism efforts at home--but they must draw a line between legitimate dissent and genuine terrorism, and not trample human rights.

Bush will deliver that message in person when the heads of 21 Pacific Rim economies convene in Shanghai this weekend for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said Monday.

The president is scheduled to depart for China on Wednesday morning. He will stop briefly in Sacramento to meet with business and labor groups and speak to U.S. troops at Travis Air Force Base.

Although global trade is still on the agenda in Shanghai, the war on terrorism is likely to dominate the discussions, turning the usually staid economic summit into a regional war council against Saudi militant Osama bin Laden and his followers.

“Clearly the entire framework for the APEC meeting has shifted, and it will now focus overwhelmingly on counter-terrorism,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and now a China expert at the University of Michigan.

The spotlight on Bush’s coalition-building efforts presents the president with fresh opportunities--but also mounting challenges--as he goes about waging war on terrorism.

Many of the leaders with whom Bush will meet have their own domestic considerations that could constrain the international coalition--chief among them the rising anti-U.S. sentiment in countries such as Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population.

“I would expect that no one will say don’t fight terrorism, but that people will voice more nuanced concerns that the U.S. should act in accordance with the U.N. Charter, that the U.S. should take significant measures to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties and make the case of the guilt of those being targeted,” Lieberthal said.

“The United States also must be highly sensitive to the potential of destabilizing the governments that are friendly to us,” he warned.

Bush also is expected to lobby the Asian nations to help freeze the financial assets of Bin Laden’s network.

“It’s important to enlist Muslim leaders, not just in the Middle East but from around the world, to understand that this is clearly not a war of religions, not a war with the Muslim world,” Rice told reporters Monday.

“These leaders understand the threat of terrorism perhaps even better than we Americans do,” she said. “They know that terrorists are after the stability of their countries as well, these extremists. And so we believe we have common cause with them and that we can work toward a common understanding.”

Lieberthal said that Bush’s overarching goal should be to persuade the Pacific Rim leaders to declare themselves “collectively committed to the counter-terrorism effort--so that that’s seen as a legitimately regional initiative, rather than something being forced by the United States, to which some in the region may object.”

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Bush has lavishly praised the support he has received from Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. The Bush administration also has acknowledged that Moscow faces international terrorists with links to Bin Laden in the republic of Chechnya, where Russian forces are fighting a separatist movement. Putin will be in Shanghai.

Both Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer have denied that the president has toned down his condemnation of Russian brutalities in Chechnya as a quid pro quo for Putin’s unstinting support for the anti-terrorism coalition.

“The president has been clear that our policies continue to be concerned about human rights issues, to be concerned about minority rights issues,” Rice said.

At the same time, she added, Washington will tell Chechen leaders “to make sure that there are no international terrorists among them.”

China similarly hopes to win Washington’s at least tacit support for its own struggles against Muslim separatists--perhaps in return for Beijing’s endorsement of the U.S.-led fight against terrorism.

Asked how Bush intends to approach the Chinese leadership on that issue, Rice responded:

“It is clearly our job . . . to make certain that we continue to draw a line in all of our discussions between legitimate dissent or legitimate movements for the rights of minorities and the fact that there may be international terrorists in various parts of the world. We’ve done that in the situation in Chechnya. We would do that in our discussions with the Chinese.”

In the face of the international focus on counter-terrorism, many in Shanghai are hoping to keep trade and economic issues from disappearing altogether. With a global recession looming, APEC leaders have warned that member economies can ill afford to ignore the task of improving trade and economic cooperation.

“Economic growth is a critically important anti-terrorism measure,” said Daniel H. Rosen, a member of the U.S. delegation. “If anything, there is a greater urgency to take bolder steps to encourage growth.”

The signing of a “Shanghai Accord” has been a long-term goal of the forum; the accord calls for APEC members to commit themselves to free trade by the year 2020. How substantive the accord turns out to be will be one measure of how much the anti-terrorism initiatives dominate the discussions.

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Chen reported from Washington and Ni from Shanghai.