Leaning Toward the Mainland

By Marguerite Johnson

Quietly, the U.S. is favoring China over Taiwan

" One billion Chinese people are not be bullied." With that harsh rejoinder, Peking's official New China News Agency recently went out of its way to lambast a Wall Street Journal editorial that called on the Reagan Administration to "stop cringing every time Peking throws a tantrum," and give more help to Taiwan. Some Americans, an article by the New China News Agency said, believe that China is "a piece of cake to be sliced as they please."

That is hardly the case. Successive Washington Administrations have performed a difficult and delicate diplomatic balancing act adhering to the "one China" policy laid out in the 1972 Shanghai agreement between Washington and Peking without offending either the mainland Chinese or the people of Taiwan. In that communique, and in the later normalization agreement of 1978 between the U.S. and China, both countries agreed that Taiwan was technically part of China. But the U.S. did not want to abandon its old allies on the island. Under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, Washington agreed to promote commercial and cultural relations with Taiwan and to provide it with defensive arms.

Until recently, Peking has seemed to be reasonably understanding of the necessarily ambivalent U.S. position. Just last year, for example, the Carter Administration authorized the sale of more than $500 million in American arms to Taiwan. Peking said very little then, but the strident language emanating from the Chinese these days marks a significant change in attitude. Before Secretary of State Alexander Haig's visit to Peking in June, the Chinese issued a series of warnings, each blunter than the one before, expressing opposition to American arms sales to Taiwan. The outcry culminated in a front-page declaration by the People's Daily, saying that "if the U.S. sells arms to Taiwan again, China will inevitably make a strong response."

Peking apparently remembered that Ronald Reagan had expressed his support of Taiwan during his presidential campaign and pledged, if elected, to upgrade U.S. relations with Taipei. During his visit to Peking, Haig sought to reassure the Chinese leadership that the U.S. had not in fact changed its position. Even before Haig had left Peking, President Reagan undercut him by telling a press conference: "I have not changed my feelings about Taiwan." The Chinese were upset enough to collar Haig at the airport, minutes before his scheduled departure, and upbraid him for the President's remarks. Since then, the attacks on Washington's Taiwan policy have grown steadily harsher.

Both Peking and Taipei have apparently concluded that the Reagan Administration is at odds with itself over its China policy. In fact, despite Reagan's campaign pledges and some recent State Department talk of more "frequent" and "cordial" contacts with Taiwan representatives. Administration officials insist the Reagan rapprochement with Taiwan is more form than substance. To underscore the fact that U.S. policy is decidedly pro-Peking, Haig has even reminded his staff that meetings with Taiwan's representatives are not to take place in U.S. Government buildings. Moreover, Washington has decided that there will be no recognition of Taiwan and no move to give any kind of official status to its representatives. The decision to sell Taiwan some FX fighters has been deferred. So has the Taiwan request to set up an extra office in Boston for consular business.

Why, then, is Peking so vehemently criticizing the U.S.? One theory is that the rhetoric reflects a foreign policy debate under way in Peking. Says a Western diplomat in Hong Kong: "Whatever faction in China is on the outs is going to be hawkish on the Taiwan issue." The opposition to Strongman Deng Xiaoping is heavily weighted with military conservative elements that would tend to be tough on the Taiwan issue. Thus, Deng may be trying to placate his critics by also taking a hard line on Taiwan.

Harvard's John K. Fairbank, one of the most highly respected American scholars on China, feels that Deng Is trying to bolster his aura of leadership. Says he: "Peking, like all Chinese governments, has a lot of pride. It's got a billion people to govern, and unless it can maintain a prestigious situation, it can't do the job. There'd be hell to pay."

In the view of Chang King-yuh, director of the government-supported Institute of International Relations in Taipei. Peking may also have misread Washington's anti-Soviet rhetoric. Chang believes that Peking harbors an exaggerated view of how much the U.S. needs China as a "strategic asset" in the conflict with the Soviets. Washington, he points out, has made virtually all the concessions on China policy. China has received such benefits as enhanced international prestige and the prospect of buying weapons from the U.S. Peking may believe that further pressure on Washington will bring additional rewards.

Taipei, in more subtle ways, is also doing its best to influence American policy. It has rejected the informal nomination of Thomas Shoesmith, currently U.S.

Consul General in Hong Kong, to be head of the American Institute in Taiwan, the unofficial U.S. office on the island. Reason: Taipei wants a diplomat of higher rank and one with closer ties to the White House. The Taiwanese are also circulating word that their relations with Washington are improving, thereby tweaking Peking while trying to nudge Reagan into living up to his campaign pledge to improve relations.

China, say the experts, is genuinely committed to taking control of Taiwan one day. Nobody expects Peking to make a military move on Taiwan: the mainland is too tied down on its southern borders with the Vietnamese and on its northern with the Soviets to launch such an adventure, which would surely rupture its ties with the U.S. Peking's goal, in the judgment of China-watchers, is to weaken Taiwan diplomatically, politically and militarily until it will no longer feel strong enough to rebuff overtures for negotiations.

--By Marguerite Johnson.

Reported by Edwin M. Reingold/Peking and Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by Edwin M. Reingold/Peking, Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

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