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-OCTOBER, 1995- |
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JIANG REACHES OUT
As He Prepares to See Clinton, China's Leader Woos Taiwan
By Todd Crowell with David Hsieh in Beijing
ON OCT. 14, THE Beijing People's Daily carried another tirade against secessionist sentiment in Taiwan. It seemed but the latest such volley since a June visit to America by President Lee Teng-hui plunged China-Taiwan relations as well as Sino-U.S. ties into crisis. Yet at the same time, President Jiang Zemin was sending a very different signal through interviews with American magazines. He had this to say about the man his country's own media has been denouncing as a double-dealer to be tossed into the dustbin of history: "I welcome Lee Teng-hui to come to Beijing." Jiang went further: "If he invites me to Taipei, I'm ready to go." Taiwan's initial response was cautious but positive.
A week before he was to travel to New York to meet U.S. President Bill Clinton, the Chinese leader clearly wanted to temper recent tensions. According to Asiaweek's sources, Jiang overruled senior colleagues who wanted a tougher approach to the U.S. on Taiwan and accepted a summit without the trappings of a state visit. "He regards improving China's ties with the U.S. as a very big priority," says one source. Another positive sign: Beijing's announcement last week that its U.S. ambassador Li Daoyu, recalled four months ago, would accompany Jiang to America and return to his post.
The two presidents have met before, but the occasions were not very cordial. Clinton reportedly does not like his Chinese counterpart. And in China, few people in authority seem to have anything positive to say about the U.S. leader. What would the pair talk about this time? "What else but Taiwan?" says a Beijing University historian. "The linchpin of our relationship with the Americans is their promise not to intervene on Taiwan. Anything else is negotiable, but we will not budge an inch on this." Clinton and Jiang are also likely to discuss trade, nuclear proliferation and human rights.
Despite the importance they attach to the summit, the Chinese make no secret that they have virtually given up on the Clinton administration as a reliable partner. "Its defining characteristic," wrote senior America-watcher Niu Jun recently in the intelligentsia-oriented Guangming Daily, "has been its vacillation." The Chinese see Clinton as provincial, preoccupied with domestic or European affairs. "He can shake your hand one day and slap your face the next," says one foreign-policy strategist in Beijing.
In fact, China's leaders pin their hopes for a steadier and more predictable relationship on a Republican victory in next year's U.S. presidential election. That may seem surprising, given the decidedly pro-Taiwan views of some Republican leaders. But while a new president might not be "softer" on China, the Chinese believe his policies will be more consistent. Recently, Beijing's leaders have shown a liking for candidate-in-waiting Colin Powell, the retired general they identify with Republican administrations that he served.
Jiang, of course, has his own domestic politics to deal with. Ever since tensions erupted over Taiwan, the question has been who controls China's foreign policy - the president or hardliners, especially in the armed forces. According to military sources, it was Premier Li Peng who decided to begin controversial missile tests off Taiwan three months ago. He did so with the backing of the two senior generals in the Central Military Commission (CMC), Liu Huaqing and Zhang Zhen, while Jiang was on a visit to Europe.
The president endorsed the decision only after he returned to Beijing, say the sources. But having gauged the two generals' disapproval of his Taiwan policies, Jiang felt more urgently the need to elevate two key supporters in the army, Chief of Staff Zhang Wannian and Defense Minister Chi Haotian, to become vice-chairmen of the CMC. It was highly unusual for such promotions to be passed at a plenum of the Communist Party's Central Committee - as they were three weeks ago. Jiang's approach to Taiwan and the U.S. apparently received strong backing from a big majority of the committee's members. "They considered his stance pragmatic and realistic," says one insider.
That Jiang has been able to make conciliatory gestures - such as agreeing to a scaled-down summit with Clinton and his latest overture to Lee - is seen as a sign of political strength. "There are many indications that Jiang is personally in charge," says a Beijing military analyst. Besides the two CMC promotions, he cites the elevation of Jiang allies Wu Bangguo and Jiang Chunyun to the Politburo last year as well as more recent command changes in various military regions.
Moreover, under Jiang's chairmanship of the CMC, the military budget has been growing in double digits. More military men have risen to key decision-making positions. The president has also made a concerted effort to promote younger generals. "The younger officers have high expectations on the question of sovereignty over Taiwan," says the analyst. Some have even taken to calling the Foreign Ministry "the ministry of traitors" for its perceived weakness in dealing with the U.S. on that score. It took Jiang's personal intervention to calm the ranks. His message to the officers: "Everyone makes mistakes."
Some observers think that after the thunderstorms of summer, Beijing may be adroitly tacking to a new wind. Whatever Lee's public positions, they believe the Taiwan leader now understands that he pushed China too far by engineering a trip to the U.S. There is also a realistic appraisal in Beijing that Lee remains the likely victor in Taiwan's presidential election next March. "It would be folly on our part to push him to the brink," says the military analyst. Of late, China has directed more of its criticism at Lee's challenger Peng Ming-min, candidate of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.
Jiang is convinced the best way for his country to deal with the U.S. is to focus on its own economic development. "The Americans may worry about China as a potential adversary, but they will be loath to forsake its giant consumer market," says a Chinese insider. It is unclear if the summit will yield substantive results. But if it helps lift the pall that has descended on what is becoming arguably the world's most important bilateral relationship, it can be considered an accomplishment.
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Chinese activists push human rights
issue
Angling world leaders' attention
October 24, 1995 Web posted at 6:45 p.m. EDT
From Bureau Chief Andrea Koppel
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China's human rights violations used to top of the list of U.S. concerns when Washington officials met their Chinese counterparts. Not any more. Trade now has a higher priority. But China's dissident community hopes to keep the human rights issue from being overlooked.
Four such activists sat quietly in a Beijing park last Sunday, one of them holding a photograph of Chen Ziming, a 43-year-old prison inmate. The four -- his parents, wife and sister -- want him released because he has cancer. It was hardly a protest at all, but it was enough for Chinese authorities to detain Chen's wife and sister. "We are worried (about) his physical condition," his mother said. "What parents on Earth would not feel this way for their child?"
Chen is serving a 13-year sentence, charged with involvement in China's 1989 pro-democracy uprising. He was released on medical parole but later rearrested. His wife, Wang Zhihong, told CNN she also has suffered at the hands of authorities and worries that Chen will die in prison.
Hoping to bring her husband's case to international attention, Wang wrote to world leaders, timing her letters to coincide with this week's 50th anniversary of the United Nations and the visit to New York by Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Dissidents in two Chinese provinces also wrote to Jiang on Chen's behalf. President Clinton received a similar letter, written by the sister of China's most famous dissident, Wei Jingsheng. Wei was released in 1993 after serving most of his 15-year prison sentence but was picked up again a year later. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Ever since it crushed the student democracy movement in 1989, China's record on human rights has been a sore spot in its relations with other countries, especially the United States. But last year the Clinton administration announced it would no longer link China's progress in human rights with trading privileges. It said a policy of engagement would ultimately be more effective. But most dissidents and their families have yet to see the benefits of that new policy. "I feel that international concern and support for Wei Jingsheng is extremely important," said his sister, Shanshan. "It definitely has an impact on those people within the Chinese government who are inclined to be enlightened."
For the moment it remains to be seen if world leaders are listening.
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First Russia, now China
Clinton meeting with Jiang Zemin
October 24, 1995 Web posted at: 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- One day after narrowing differences with Russia, President Clinton tries to do the same with China. He meets with President Jiang Zemin who, like Clinton, is in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
Tuesday's talks are expected to deal with several events that have soured U.S.-Chinese relations:
Washington's approval of a visit to the United States earlier this year by the president of Taiwan. Beijing saw the action as legitimizing Taiwan. China has considered the island a renegade province since it broke away in 1949 when communists took power in Beijing. Elizabeth Economy, who studies China for the Council of Foreign Relations, expects the Taiwan issue to top Tuesday's agenda, with China hoping to bar any future U.S. visits of a Taiwanese leader.
China's hoped-for entry into the World Trade Organization. WTO members promise to provide each other with the best possible trading terms, but Beijing has insisted that it be treated as a developing country. Such an agreement would temporarily exempt it from from anti-protectionism and free trade rules that are enforced on developed economies. The United States and other world economic powers argue China's vast economic potential means it should agree to rules closer to those for advanced economies.
China's arrest last July of U.S. citizen and human rights activist Harry Wu. He was held for one month and expelled after being convicted of spying.
In a New York speech Monday, Jiang opened the door to international discussion of China's human rights policy, but he also signaled a hard line against China's critics, who include members of the U.S. Congress. Criminal acts that undermine national security, he said, should not be lumped with human rights issues.
In a speech of his own in New York on Monday, Wu charged that the World Bank is contributing to China's "gulag" prison system by funding a project in a remote area of western China used for forced labor camps.
The World Bank, which lends billions of dollars for anti-poverty projects, said it would take up Wu's claim with the Chinese government if Wu provides solid evidence. An embassy official from China termed Wu's report "unworthy of comment."
Tuesday's Clinton-Jiang talks were moved from the New York City Public Library to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts after China objected to a library exhibit called "What Price Freedom?" It includes a reference to the 1989 Chinese military crackdown against pro-democracy advocates in Tiananmen Square.
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