US Gives China's Deputy a Full Diplomatic Show

May 02, 2002
From Richard Beeston in Washington

AMERICA and China took the first tentative steps towards repairing their bruised relations yesterday when the heir to the Chinese leadership was greeted at the White House by President Bush and granted a brief but unprecedented look inside the Pentagon.

Dodging protests by anti-Chinese demonstrators, Hu Jintao, the Chinese Vice-President, was given a reception normally accorded to world leaders. The technocrat, on his first visit to America, had lunch with Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, was greeted at the Pentagon by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and then met Mr Bush at the White House.

The Administration’s curiosity has been whetted because Mr Hu is in line to become the next leader of the Chinese Communist Party later this year and is expected to take over as President from Jiang Zemin next year.

Despite the show of friendship and strong trade ties, officials on both sides admitted that the two countries were at odds on a variety of sensitive issues, such as China’s human rights record and Taiwan. Mr Bush, who has placed a strong emphasis on building personal ties with world leaders, was expected to thank China for its help in the War on Terror, but the White House said that he would also raise the thorny issue of China’s human rights abuses and, in particular, its harsh treatment of religious movements.

Mr Hu, possibly with his own domestic audience in mind, made clear that he would defend his country robustly. On Tuesday he refused to accept letters of protest from members of the US Congress delivered to him by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives.

Mr Hu was expected to take his hosts to task over Taiwan. Mr Bush has taken steps to end America’s longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” over Taiwan by stating that America would step in to defend the breakaway island, which China insists is a rebel province that should be reunited with the mainland. The Bush Administration has upgraded official ties with Taipei and agreed to supply unprecedented military hardware to its Armed Forces.

The Pentagon has had a particularly frosty relationship with China since the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and the seizure last year by China of a US spy plane and its crew after a mid-air collision with a Chinese fighter jet. Yet ties have improved since the attacks on September 11, when Beijing co-operated with America in its campaign against al-Qaeda.

Mr Rumsfeld, regarded as one of the more hawkish members of the Administration towards Beijing, went out of his way to play down differences between the two Pacific superpowers and emphasise how much he was looking forward to Mr Hu’s brief but symbolic visit. At a press conference he refused to respond to recent reports that China had begun to deploy the first of 600 medium-range surface-to-surface missiles in coastal provinces opposite Taiwan.

Nevertheless, the issue was expected to dominate talks held behind closed doors, along with American plans to build a missile defence system in the Pacific.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-284794,00.html