Wed, Aug 20, 2003 page3

• Controversial China expert gains sway in Washington

  SOFT ON BEIJING? The man whom the `Washington Times' accuses of bringing Chinese spies into the US has been named foreign-policy aide to Condoleezza Rice

  • By Charles Snyder / STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
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  US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has named as her key foreign policy planning aide a controversial academic and diplomat who is recognized as an expert on China's military and who has long advocated a moderate position toward China, to the dismay of the more conservative supporters of the George W. Bush administration.

  Robert Blackwill, a former ambassador to India, was named by Rice last Friday as deputy assistant to the president and Rice's coordinator for strategic planning.

  "Ambassador Blackwill will work with government-wide policy planning operations to help develop and coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of American foreign policy," the White House said in making the announcement.

  Blackwill was named as the envoy to India in July 2001, after, sources said, failing in an effort to become ambassador to China. His resignation from the New Delhi post was announced in April, although he stayed on until this month.

  Conflicting goals

  Indian newspaper accounts at the time said he was fired because of his strong support for better US-Indian ties, which conflicted with the State Department's emphasis on improving ties with Pakistan -- reports that the department denied.

  His career before New Delhi was centered at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where, among other things, he was the chairman of the school's Chinese security studies program.

  Before that, he had an extensive State Department career and was head of the National Security Council's European and Soviet Affairs section in 1989 and 1990 under then president George Bush.

  In 2000, George W. Bush picked him to be a member of the so-called "Vulcans," a select group that formulated foreign policy for his presidential campaign and taught Bush, who had virtually no experience in foreign affairs, about the ways of the world.

  The Vulcans, headed by Rice, also included such later Bush administration officials as Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.

  Blackwill was charged with writing the Republican Party campaign platform section on China and Taiwan, a draft which angered Bush's conservative supporters by including what they considered pro-China statements.

  According to reports at the time, Blackwill's draft drew a host of conservative China specialists to the Republican Convention in Philadelphia to rewrite the platform with stronger pro-Taiwan and anti-China language.

  `Trojan horse'

  A report about the incident in the right-wing Washington Times carried the following account of the incident: "Republicans at the Philadelphia convention beat back a Trojan Horse attempt to water down the party platform on defense and foreign policy in ways supportive of China.

  "Robert Blackwill, a controversial Harvard University professor who brings Chinese military spies to the US with grant money from a Hong Kong billionaire, tried to rewrite the national-security planks ... and delete references offensive to Beijing," the Times column said.

  The reference to the Chinese spies refers to a program Blackwill set up at Harvard to invite groups of Chinese military officers to the Harvard center for two-week seminars on US military decision-making and thinking, including how the US might respond to a crisis over Taiwan.

  Chinese spies

  The group, mainly senior colonels, came from the Central Military Commission, the People's Liberation Army general staff department and regional military commands, and attended lectures from current and former US military and national security officials.

  The program was set up in 1997, reportedly with a US$7 million grant from Hong Kong billionaire entrepreneur Nina Wang. Wang is regarded as Asia's richest woman and her company -- property developer and chemical manufacturer Chinachem -- is said to have extensive ties in China.

  Critics of the Harvard program have claimed that the Chinese officers are spies whose purpose was to garner US military secrets and set up propaganda programs aimed at China detractors in the US.

  They were also interested, according to reports at the time, about US intentions toward Taiwan, and how Washington would react to Chinese provocations or attacks on Taiwan.

  Despite the critics' contentions, Blackwill's writings and comments on Taiwan and China are much more supportive of Taiwan, and in the mainstream of the Bush administration's policies.

  In a book he co-authored in 2000, America's Asian Alliance, for instance, Blackwill warned that "Taiwan and China may well be on a path of military confrontation in the mid-term.

  "If Beijing were to use force against Taiwan, it is probable that the US would help Taiwan defend itself. Is there any doubt that in those dire circumstances, the US president would seek tangible support from its allies: Australia, Japan and South Korea?"

  The comment was prophetic, for a year later the Bush administration adopted the idea, which was announced in Canberra last August during a trip to Asia by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

  The US officials announced what they said was a "tentative" plan to forge a four-power defense forum -- a plan Beijing immediately slammed as a NATO-like alliance aimed at containing China.

  Four years before co-authoring that book, Blackwill was part of a group called The Committee on America's National Interests, which appeared to question's Washington's "one China" policy.

  "Comparing Washington's one-China statements since 1972 recognizing China's one-China claim," a committee report said, "on all those occasions, Washington acknowledged China's ultimate claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.

  Taiwan's importance

  "Today, however, the weight of the argument for acknowledging the reality of Taiwan's importance as a member of the international system is nearly overwhelming.

  "Handling this issue will require much more skill in both Washington and Beijing than either has demonstrated so far in the mid-1990s."

  Other members of the committee included Rice, Armitage, Senators John McCain, Sam Nunn and Bob Graham, and former national security official Brent Scowcroft.
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