A Decade of Measured Progress

By William E. Smith

Despite new Sino-American ties, Taiwan remains a problem

Richard Nixon called it "the week that changed the world," and he was not exaggerating. On Feb. 28, 1972, at the close of the American President's historic trip to China, he and his host, Premier Chou Enlai, signed the Shanghai Communique calling for a renewal of relations between the U.S. and China, implacable enemies since the Communist takeover of the mainland in 1949. The agreement led to an immediate exchange of diplomats by the two nations that had fought so bitterly on the battlefields of the Korean War. Despite the problems that persist, particularly those concerning the status and defense of the Nationalist government on Taiwan, there is absolutely no doubt that China's "American decade," as it has sometimes been called, has altered the realities of global power.

For both the U.S. and China, the change in course was dictated by what former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has called a "dire necessity": dealing with the menace posed to both nations by the Soviet Union. The U.S., trying to disengage itself from the war in Indochina, perceived China as a potential partner in countering the growth of the Soviet military presence in Asia. China, after more than a decade of hostility toward the Soviet Union, had witnessed with alarm the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the violent clashes along the Sino-Soviet border in 1969. In Peking's view, the U.S. could not only be used to rescue China from its dangerous isolation, but could also become its principal partner in a worldwide realignment embracing Western Europe, Japan and even part of the Third World against what the Chinese called "the superpower that poses the greatest threat to peace."

So eager was China for reconciliation with the U.S. that it was prepared, according to Chairman Mao Tse-tung, to wait indefinitely to settle the problem of Taiwan, the island 90 miles off the coast, where the defeated Nationalists had taken refuge in 1949. The Chinese regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province and felt that the U.S. had been defending it as a separate state. Mao emphasized that he was far less concerned about the Taiwan issue than about the problems of the world (see SPECIAL SECTION).

Today China cooperates with the U.S. on remarkably varied and important undertakings. There is a joint program to collect intelligence data on Soviet missile tests. Trade has risen from virtually nothng a decade ago to $5.5 billion last year, and the U.S. has become China's third--anking partner in commerce (after Japan and Hong Kong). Some 80 American companies have established offices in Peking, and the Bank of China has started a branch in New York City. Last month China opened 58,000 sq. mi. of potentially rich offshore oil grounds to competitive bidding by 46 oil companies, half of them American.

Last year 16,000 Chinese were granted visas to visit the U.S., while an estimated 80,000 American tourists went to China. More than 8,000 Chinese students are enrolled at American universities and technical schools, eight times as many as in any other country. About 1,200 Americans are living and working in China, including 21 journalists. The once banned Voice of America broadcasts are now heard regularly by millions of Chinese, including Party Vice Chairman Deng Xiaoping, and may be the country's most widely believed source of information about the outside world.

The U.S. has received other benefits from the China connection. Washington gained an influential friend in United Nations councils dominated by the Third World, where American policy has frequently been scorned. What is more, the friendship with China reduced the defense burden of the U.S. in East Asia. Says a senior State Department official: "We were able to redeploy forces from that region to other parts of the world."

As for the Chinese, they are generally pleased with the benefits of the understanding with Washington, which has strengthened their hand against the Soviets. There have been, however, some disappointments. The Chinese had hoped for easy access to advanced technology and to favorable loans for development projects; instead, they have experienced long delays in securing licenses for importing advanced American computers and the like. But by far the most serious issue to arise between the two countries is the question of the defense of Taiwan, and so far the matter remains dangerously unresolved. The latest trouble came to a head in January, when the Reagan Administration announced that it would continue to supply the Taiwan government with F-5E supersonic fighters. The Chinese argue that the U.S. should set a deadline for ending all arms transfers to Taiwan, or at least should demonstrate that it is beginning to curtail its support for an island that the Shanghai Communique treated as "a part of China."

Since the fighter-plane decision, China has become testier in its comments about the U.S., even referring to it as a "hegemonist power," an epithet that the Chinese had long reserved for the hated Soviets. Deng Xiaoping told a visiting U.S. businessman that relations between the two countries were "not good," and the New China News Agency has spoken obliquely of a possible "retrogression" in the friendship. There were no speeches or celebrations in China to mark the close of the "American decade."

But after President Reagan sent a message to Premier Zhao Ziyang expressing his desire for "an even stronger framework for long-term friendship," Zhao replied in a similarly cordial tone, saying in effect that China was willing to try to break the Taiwan deadlock. Clearly, in the vital interests of both nations, they must do so. As Richard Nixon, reflecting on his finest hour, wrote last week in the New York Times, "The bottom line is that both sides must recognize the paramount importance of preserving the new relationship. Neither of us can allow anything, including differences over Taiwan, to jeopardize this."

--By William E. Smith. Reported by Richard Bernstein/Peking

With reporting by Richard Bernstein/Peking

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