Sun, Oct 28, 2001 page3

• China gets no Taiwan `deal' at APEC

  STEADFAST ALLY Despite grumblings that the US might make some concessions on its Taiwan policy, inside sources say talks between the US and China did nothing of the sort

  • By Charles Snyder / STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
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  US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin (江澤民) touched on Taiwan only briefly in their summit meeting in Shanghai on the sidelines of the APEC meeting this month, with both sides reiterating their existing positions, sources and analysts in Washington said.

  The question of some sort of deal in which the Bush administration would make some concessions on its Taiwan policy in exchange for Beijing's support in the US-led war on terror did not come up, they said.

  Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, US policy toward Taiwan has not changed, according to the sources.

  At the Shanghai meeting, Bush spelled out a policy that included supporting the "one China" policy and basing US policy on the Taiwan Relations Act and the three communiques that define that policy. The Taiwan Relations Act, among other things, calls for US sales of defensive arms to Taiwan.

  Bush also reiterated the US' insistence on a peaceful resolution of cross-strait relations.

  "The president very strongly reaffirmed his commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act. He affirmed his belief that Taiwan ought to be treated with respect. They had a discussion on it, but the president made very clear that American policy remained the same," a senior administration official told reporters in Shanghai after the meeting.

  In a joint press conference held after their meeting, the two leaders barely mentioned Taiwan. Bush mentioned the issue only once in passing while Jiang twice said the issue should be "handled properly" in order for Sino-US relations to improve.

  Apart from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao's (朱邦造) comments last month that seemed to suggest some concessions from the US, China has not otherwise raised the issue, according to observers in Washington.

  Trial balloon

  "The consensus among China specialists is that [Zhu's statement] was maybe a little bit of a trial balloon, but not something that they were really going to push for," said Shelley Rigger, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, who has studied Taiwan and China extensively. "The Chinese see the opportunity to repair the relationship and they're not going to push their luck."

  A former US ambassador said the US would never enter into any deal.

  "There's no possibility of the United States making trade-offs involving Taiwan's interests," said former US Ambassador to China Stapleton Roy. "I don't think that we will be doing anything that will be in any way contrary to the fundamental interests of Taiwan."

  Much of the discussion during the Bush-Jiang meeting dealt with terrorism, observers said. China's cooperation with the US stems in part from its own interest in stopping its sometimes violent Uigher separatist movement in China's Muslim-dominated far west.

  "This was not the time to focus on differences," noted Bonnie Glaser, a consultant with the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum, of Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This was the time to focus on common interests.

  "This is the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union that this relationship has had a significant strategic focus, and I think both sides are taking advantage of that opportunity to improve the relationship."

  Some observers feel that Beijing's Western separatist movement could shield Taiwan from any Beijing effort to wrest concessions from Washington.

  "They're probably smart enough to ask for some help with the Uigher situation first, because that would be an easier sell than Taiwan," one congressional source said.

  Ties to bin Laden

  Indeed, recently in Washington, even some staunch conservatives who have seen the Uigher situation solely in terms of human rights have begun to concede that the separatists have engaged in terrorism, including bombings in Beijing, and that they may have ties to Osama bin Laden.

  And some reports say that Washington and Beijing have been sharing intelligence on Central Asian separatist movements since well before Sept. 11 for their common interests, and Beijing may be counting on continued US help in the future.

  Some conservatives in Washington feel that the Bush administration's aggressive support of Taiwan had actually begun to slip last spring, after the EP-3 incident in which a US reconnaissance plane was forced down on Hainan Island after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

  "I think they began to back off from their strong pro-Taiwan positions by late April or May," said one conservative congressional staffer.

  "They were spooked by the EP-3 incident, rather than angry with China over the incident," he said, noting that at the time administration officials made a number of statements supporting a "one China" stance and opposition to Taiwan independence.

  "They were searching for ways to smooth things over with China, making some rhetorical concessions on Taiwan that essentially placed them back close to the Clinton administration policy," he said.

  He said that "one China"and no independence were "two of the three noes," a reference to Clinton's "three noes" policy statement in Shanghai in 1998, during his state visit to China.

  The third "no" dealt with Taiwan's participation in international organizations.

  In the future, China might seek to cash in on its current cooperative relationship with the US, many analysts said.

  "It would be reasonable to say that over time that China would expect that their cooperation with the US on an issue of vital security importance to our country will lead the administration to exercise more sensitivity toward Chinese concerns that are vital to their national security interests, and the No.1 issue, of course, would be Taiwan," Glaser said.

  On arms sales, for instance, China might object more strenuously than in the past, as they did this year when they warned that the sale of sophisticated AEGIS-equipped destroyers to Taiwan would hurt Sino-US relations.

  Benefits of cooperation

  "They warned it would lead to a dramatic deterioration in relations, and I would guess that in the future they hope their cooperation will reap them some benefits. If it does not, I think they will be rather disappointed," Glaser said.

  On a broader level, China's participation in the broad international coalition against the terrorists that the Bush administration has assembled could ease some criticism of China in Washington, Rigger said.

  "It's easier for the right wing to put pressure on when its easy to be critical of China. In the future, it is going to be more dodgy to say that the Chinese are enemies in every way, and therefore the White House must not be soft on the Taiwan issue," she said.

  "In the future, we're going to have to acknowledge that there's a more positive component to the relationship. It takes away one of the assets that the Taiwan lobby in the United States had for pressuring any administration to take a hard line," Rigger said.

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