Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen's (錢其琛) upcoming visit to the US reflects Beijing's anxiety over Washington's increasingly hawkish policy toward China, but is unlikely to persuade the US to stop its sales of high-tech weaponry to Taipei, analysts said yesterday.
"The main drive for Qian's visit is the Chinese government's anxiety about the new US administration, in which many high-ranking officials have maintained a rather unfriendly attitude toward Beijing," said Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), a political analyst at National Chengchi University.
While former US president Bill Clinton saw Beijing as a "strategic partner," George W. Bush has uttered rather "hawkish" rhetoric toward Beijing, analysts said.
The main purpose of Qian's visit, therefore, is to determine the bottom line of the US' policy toward China and to persuade Washington not to sell high-tech defense weaponry to Taiwan, Wu added.
Qian, China's top foreign policy official, will visit New York and Washington between March 18 and March 24. US President George W. Bush will meet Qian in Washington on March 22, the White House said on Friday.
China has sent delegations of senior officials to engage US opinion makers since Bush took office in January.
China is alarmed at signs that the new Bush administration plans to sell Taipei billions of dollars in high-tech weaponry. In April, Washington must decide what weapons it will sell to Taiwan.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan (唐家璇) issued a blunt warning to Washington, saying: "the US should recognize the serious dangers involved" in the arms sales question.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday that the Bush administration would abide by the "Six Assurances" made by the Reagan administration in 1982.
One of the assurances is that the US will not engage in advanced consultations with China on defense sales to Taiwan.
Analysts said Qian's trip would carry little weight in determining the scale of the arms sale.
"It is the military balance across the Taiwan Strait, rather than lobbying forces from Beijing, that has remained the key factor affecting the scale of the sale of arms to Taipei," Wu said.
"The best way for the US to handle the issue is to listen to Beijing's opinion without responding so as to reach the US objective of not engaging in any advanced consultations with China on defense sales to Taiwan," said Lin Bih-jaw (林碧炤), professor of international relations at National Chengchi University.
Lin, who was the deputy secretary general of the National Security Council under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), said it is unlikely that Qian will take a hard-line stance on controversial issues between Beijing and Washington during his visit to the US.
"After all, the Bush administration has four years to go, and it would not be advantageous to China for Qian to utter loud rhetoric on contentious issues," Lin said.
Analysts have said that the Bush administration has yet to produce a well thought out strategy for dealing with China, and Bush could strain relations with Beijing when dealing with impending controversial issues, such as the US decision in April on the sale of arms to Taiwan.
Other issues include the US' plan to pursue a resolution condemning China's human rights record at the UN's Commission on Human Rights when it meets in Geneva at the end of March. And later in June, the US Congress must decide whether to extend normal US-China trade for another year.
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