Bush Drops Beijing From Asia Itinerary

President Bush has postponed an October state visit to Beijing in order to spend more time here to prosecute the war on terrorism, the White House said Tuesday.

Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush will still attend the two-day Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Shanghai, but that he will skip planned stops in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo along the way.

Bush’s decision reflects his desire to “shorten the amount of time that the president is going to be out of the country at this moment,” Fleischer told reporters.

A terse written announcement gave no official reason for the drastic scaling back of Bush’s 10-day Asia trip. It said that the state visit in Beijing and the trips to Japan and South Korea “will be rescheduled when circumstances permit.”

Another senior administration official remarked, “Osama bin Laden has had enough validation of his evilness, and we didn’t want to have the press release say that he [Bush] had to change his schedule because of this.”

But China experts questioned the decision.

“There’s no question that the Chinese wanted him to go to Beijing. So they will certainly be disappointed,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, a University of Michigan China expert and former senior director for Asia on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration.

White House aides said Bush personally conveyed his regrets earlier on Tuesday to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was visiting the White House.

Meantime, a senior Bush aide expressed the president’s regrets to China and South Korea.

“They’ve been very understanding,” the senior administration official added.

Fleischer said Bush has on his Shanghai schedule one-on-one meetings with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, as well as Koizumi, during the meeting of the leaders of the 21 Pacific Rim economies.

Still, Lieberthal said, “This was an opportunity to get the U.S.-China relationship more fully on track.”