Cheney Urges More Freedom in China

Wrapping up a three-day visit to China today, Vice President Dick Cheney proclaimed that U.S.-China relations had improved markedly, but he also urged the nation’s Communist rulers to allow greater democratic freedoms.

“There’s no question ... we still have differences,” Cheney told an audience of about 500 students at Shanghai’s Fudan University, one of the country’s top educational institutions. “But the areas of agreement are far greater than those where we disagree.”

Cheney told the students -- and a potentially vast nationwide audience, because the speech was broadcast on the state-run TV network -- that China has been a striking economic success, but said the measure of a nation’s stature is “not prosperity alone.”

“Freedom is not divisible,” Cheney said. “If people can be trusted to invest and manage material assets, they will eventually ask why they cannot be trusted with decisions over what to say and what to believe.

“The desire for freedom is universal,” he added. “And it is something that successful societies, and wise leaders, have learned to embrace rather than to fear.... Freedom has a power all its own, requiring no propaganda to find recruits, and no indoctrination to keep its believers in line.”

The vice president issued his barely veiled criticism of China’s still-repressive political system after two days of cordial talks with the country’s leaders in Beijing. Cheney noted pointedly that he was speaking at the same university where President Reagan made a similar address 20 years ago, when U.S.-Chinese diplomatic relations were still new. But unlike Reagan’s speech, none of Cheney’s remarks were deleted on the TV broadcast, a U.S. official said.

U.S. officials said Cheney’s dual message -- that U.S.-Chinese ties are improving, but the United States still intends to press, at least rhetorically, for democratic reforms -- was a defining characteristic of the two countries’ relationship.

In Beijing on Wednesday, Cheney said the once-contentious dialogue between Washington and Beijing has become “an amazing relationship” in which the two nations disagree on some issues but increasingly find ways to cooperate.

In two days of talks, Cheney urged his hosts to put more pressure on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, and the Chinese repeatedly complained that the Bush administration was partial to Taiwan, which considers itself independent but which China considers a province.

But overall, the normally taciturn Cheney said, his meetings with President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and former President Jiang Zemin left him optimistic about the prospects for further improvement.

“When you look at what has been achieved on both sides, both in the United States and in China, both countries have been doing something right,” Cheney told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “When you think about the enormous scale of the economic relationship now -- they are our third-largest trading partner, the amount of investment, the flow of goods and services, the capital -- this really is an amazing relationship. It’s gone from almost nothing to one of the most significant bilateral relationships any place in the world.

“I think it is a mistake for us, as Americans, to underestimate the extent to which there are differences in terms of our approach, in terms of our political systems, in terms of our culture [and] history,” Cheney added. “By the same token, I think it’s clear that there are broad areas where we share common strategic interests, and that ... there’s no reason why we can’t achieve a high degree of cooperation and avoid the kind of conflict and confrontation that would be a tragedy for everybody.”

Cheney said he could not point to any specific benchmarks of progress in his talks -- “that’s not the way it works most of the time,” he said -- but considered his visit a success in part because the two countries can disagree about issues without threatening the overall relationship.

“I didn’t come expecting to alter Chinese policy,” he said. “I did come with the mission of making clear what our views were.... I think we achieved that.”

Still, Cheney acknowledged, a large part of the talks focused on issues on which the U.S. and China differ: North Korea, Taiwan and human rights.

Cheney told the Chinese that the U.S. believed that North Korea was still working on nuclear weapons and that, as a result, “time is not necessarily on our side,” a senior U.S. official said.

The vice president also told the Chinese that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had informed Western governments that North Korea was secretly working on a new program to produce weapons using highly enriched uranium, despite Pyongyang’s denials.

Cheney repeated his view that North Korea must agree to completely and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program before new aid can flow to the regime, said the official, who requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks.

In his speech at Fudan University, Cheney added another argument: He warned bluntly that if North Korea went nuclear, other advanced Asian countries -- presumably Japan and South Korea -- “might feel compelled” to arm themselves with nuclear weapons too.

“That could only heighten ... the likelihood that one day those weapons would be used,” Cheney said, making a point that appeared intended, at least in part, to stoke Chinese worries that Japan, a longtime rival, might become a nuclear power.

China has not fully endorsed the U.S. position on North Korea. Though Beijing and Washington oppose the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia, the Chinese have said they believe disarming North Korea will require some concessions up front -- an idea Cheney has rejected so far.

“To find a settlement, you need to make concessions,” said Jia Qingguo, associate dean of international relations at Beijing University. “You can’t just say, ‘Give me this, give me that.’ ”

On Taiwan, both Cheney and the Chinese leaders recited long-standing positions, but with little apparent tension or rancor. China considers the future of Taiwan, which has enjoyed de facto independence since 1949, to be an issue of national pride.

The United States acknowledges that the island is part of China, but insists that Beijing has no right to seize Taiwan by force. At the same time, the Bush administration -- which entered office highly sympathetic to the island’s democratic government -- has urged Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian to avoid any moves toward independence that might antagonize Beijing.

The senior U.S. official said the administration would continue to provide the Taiwanese with the military equipment “they need to protect themselves,” a policy China protests vigorously and constantly. The administration is preparing to sell the island a new, $1.8-billion radar system, but several other weapon sales have been put on hold because of a Taiwanese economic slump.

Cheney urged the Chinese to step up their dialogue with the Taiwanese government, but Chinese analysts said Beijing no longer wanted to deal with Taiwan’s independence-minded president. “I’m not very optimistic” about a peaceful resolution between China and Taiwan, said Wang Yong, associate international relations professor at Beijing University.

Cheney also reminded the Chinese of U.S. concerns about human rights and democracy, and warned that measures to restrict freedom in Hong Kong could backfire in Taiwan by strengthening sentiment in favor of independence, the U.S. official said. “People in Taiwan might view what happens in Hong Kong as something of a bellwether,” he said.

Cheney’s talks also covered economic relations, officials said. Officials from both nations said Vice Premier Huang Ju will visit Washington this year for meetings with Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

One focus of that visit will be China’s tightly controlled currency, which the U.S. says is undervalued -- meaning China can sell its exports around the world at what the Bush administration considers artificially low prices.