Strains in the Partnership

By Strobe Talbott

Moscow's overtures to Peking raise questions about Sino-U.S. ties

Ever since Chou En-lai first raised a goblet of fiery mao-tai to welcome Richard Nixon on his historic visit to Peking in 1972, American and Chinese officials have been toasting the friendship between the great Chinese and American peoples. But the fact is, of course, that from their beginnings Sino-American relations have had little to do with friendship and everything to do with a shared animosity toward the Soviet Union. For the past decade, the China factor has been a critical equalizer in the world balance of power. The Chinese People's Liberation Army ties down 49 Soviet divisions, some of which might otherwise be redeployed westward to threaten Europe or the Persian Gulf. Western calculations about the future have been haunted by the fear that

China might some day pull out of its strategic partnership with the U.S. and patch up its differences with the U.S.S.R.

That nightmare is still a long way from coming true, but anxiety about a possible Sino-Soviet rapprochement has increased in the West. Chinese officials have taken to exchanging recriminations rather than courtesies with their American counterparts. At the same time, the People's Republic has been muting its hostility to the U.S.S.R.

In March Chinese gymnasts accepted an invitation to compete in Moscow for the first time in 16 years. In September two Soviet track stars ran in Peking's annual international marathon. For the Chinese, sport can be politics conducted by other means, as the U.S. discovered in 1971 when an American table tennis team instituted Ping Pong diplomacy by leading the way for Nixon's visit to Peking.

Last week Chinese leaders made a gesture of ideological conciliation to Moscow by playing host to Georges Marchais, head of the pro-Soviet French Communist Party. The leaders of the two parties announced that they would resume relations, which were broken in 1965 when the Chinese accused the French Communists of blind allegiance to Moscow.

But most important of all was another encounter taking place elsewhere in Peking last week. Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Qian Qichen was negotiating with his Soviet opposite number, Leonid Ilyichev, on how to improve relations between the two Communist giants. China had suspended those negotiations in retaliation for the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. Even before Ilyichev arrived in Peking three weeks ago, the Sino-American relationship was undergoing its most intense growing pains in a decade. The immediate cause of difficulty is a flare-up of the old dispute over the status of Taiwan. More than three decades after Mao Tse-tung's takeover of the mainland, the Nationalist government on the island still calls itself the Republic of China. Peking, on the other hand, regards Taiwan as a province under the sovereignty of the People's Republic. The Shanghai Communique that Nixon and Chou En-lai approved in 1972 was essentially an agreement to disagree, and to do so quietly. The U.S. did not dispute Peking's claim to the island but reserved the right to continue dealing with Taipei.

At the beginning of 1979 the Carter Administration established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic and concocted the diplomatic fiction that the U.S. embassy in Taipei was now an "institute," staffed by professional diplomats technically on leave or retired from the Foreign Service. For their part, the

Chinese leaders replaced their vow to "liberate" the island with a pledge for its "peaceful reunification with the motherland." Congress, fearful that the deliberate ambiguity of this arrangement could redound at the expense of an old friend, pushed through the Taiwan Relations Act, spelling out that the U.S. would continue to supply the island for its defense.

Ronald Reagan came into office seriously considering the restoration of official relations with Taiwan, which would have caused the downgrading of the U.S. embassy in Peking and possibly its expulsion. Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who had been Nixon's advanceman in 1972, prevailed on Reagan not to turn back the clock.

But the Administration dithered over whether to sell Taiwan some F-5G jet fighters, which are more advanced than the F-5Es that form the mainstay of Taiwan's air force. For the pro-Nationalist lobby on Capitol Hill, the prospective sale became a truth test of the Administration's willingness to abide by the Taiwan Relations Act. For the leaders in Peking, it became a galling provocation that cast doubt on the U.S. commitment to the Shanghai Communique. And for the Kremlin, it presented a perfect opportunity to drive a wedge between Washington and Peking.

President Leonid Brezhnev, in a series of speeches, offered to resume talks with the Chinese. The Soviet overture helped spur the Reagan Administration toward a China policy that, when it was finally unveiled, was remarkably consistent with that of Reagan's three predecessors. In August the U.S. and the People's Republic issued a new joint communique, nicknamed Shanghai II. Peking affirmed its quest for the "peaceful reunification" of Taiwan with China, while Washington for the first time declared its intention to cap its arms sales to the island at current levels and to "reduce gradually" those sales over time. It is difficult to imagine Nixon or Carter going further toward accommodating Peking.

Reagan suppressed his own pro-Taiwan sympathies and weathered the ire of the right wing because he had become convinced of two ironies. First, if he ruptured the strategically valuable partnership with Peking, his political opponents in the U.S., particularly the Democrats, would have a field day accusing him of having "lost China." Second, the maintenance of good American relations with the People's Republic is one of the best guarantees against an invasion of Taiwan. Without the restraining influence of the U.S., the Communists would be more likely to try to settle their score with the Nationalists once and for all. Squadrons of the very best American warplanes would not be enough to stop an all-out assault across the Taiwan Strait.

But Peking has seemed unwilling either to give Reagan credit for coming a long way or to cooperate with him in putting the Taiwan issue on the back burner. The Chinese have chosen instead to keep the heat on. Reagan defended his approval of the Shanghai II communique against right-wing critics by pointing out that the U.S. promise to reduce arms sales to Taiwan was linked to China's commitment to peaceful resolution of the island's future. The Chinese Communist Party daily Renmin Ribao attacked the President for "completely violating" the spirit of the communique. The Chinese want to leave the linkage tacit. Reagan's sin, in their eyes, was to refer to it explicitly.

The Chinese leaders are hypersensitive on the Taiwan issue partly because they are feeling vulnerable to internal critics of their own. The huge Chinese Communist Party (39 million members) contains diehard Maoists, provincial military commanders who function as virtual warlords and others who oppose Deng Xiaoping's policy of turning to the capitalist world for help. They also accuse him of subjecting China to humiliation over the sale of the new U.S. jets to Taiwan.

Deng and his comrades are eager to deny that they face any significant opposition. Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang told one recent visitor that dissidents "do not number more than 200,000, and they have now been scattered all over the country." But Western experts suspect that the problem is more serious. Part of the reason that the leaders are publicly browbeating the U.S. over Taiwan is to prove their patriotism to party colleagues and to fend off the charge that they have let the U.S. push China around.

The Chinese have another complaint.

Because it fears the hemorrhaging of sophisticated, militarily useful American technology abroad, the Pentagon held up the delivery of two advanced IBM computer systems that had been promised to China for its census and seismographic research. The Chinese accused the U.S. of "discrimination." They were particularly miffed since they have provided the Pentagon with access to useful information about Soviet military technology. Late in the Carter Administration, China agreed to let the U.S. monitor Soviet missile tests from top secret intelligence-gathering stations in Sinkiang province.

But even without these irritants in the relationship, the Peking leaders may still be trying to distance themselves from the

U.S. They are worried that if they are seen as the junior member of an American-run alliance against the Soviet Union, they will risk losing leverage with everyone--the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and the Third World. Conversely, by reminding Washington that they cannot be taken for granted, and by giving Moscow some incentive to extend carrots, the Chinese leaders may gain influence in both capitals.

Hence the decision to let the Soviets send Ilyichev back to the negotiating table. Hence also Premier Zhao Ziyang's recent call for a "common endeavor to combat the superpowers' hegemonism," a deliberate use of the plural that lumped the U.S. together with the Soviet Union as a threat against "peace-loving and justice-upholding countries and peoples."

But the Chinese also risk alienating a U.S. Administration that at its highest levels is none too enthusiastic about Sino-American relations. Zhao's attack elicited a sharply worded response from Washington protesting "unfriendly" statements and "simplistic sloganeering." Secretary of State George Shultz is having second thoughts about going through with a tentatively scheduled visit to China later this year, and Reagan is cool on the idea of making a trip of his own next year.

Sensing the danger, the Chinese have used the recent visits of Nixon in September and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in early October to send discreet positive signals back to Washington. Nixon and Kissinger were both told repeatedly by the top Chinese leaders that there is no need for concern about Ilyichev's return to Peking. Deng said that "no real and fundamental improvement in Sino-Soviet relations" was possible until the U.S.S.R. had met three conditions. The Soviets must pull out of Afghanistan, which shares a narrow border with China. Moscow must end its support for Viet Nam's military takeover of Cambodia. Indochina is the soft underbelly of the P.R.C. Peking sees the Hanoi regime as threatening enough in its own right, all the more so since it is an ally of the U.S.S.R. Finally, the Soviets must withdraw their divisions from Mongolia and reduce forces along China's northern frontier. Yet at the very outset of the negotiations in Peking, Ilyichev refused to discuss the Chinese demands. Last week, shortly before the talks adjourned, Vice

Premier Wan Li said that the Soviets "have shown themselves to be deaf to our conditions for a dialogue."

Nixon returned from China brimming with optimism that the leadership in Peking, far from tilting toward Moscow, is merely making some tactical readjustments that might, in the end, strengthen its ability to combat Soviet expansionism (see following story). Kissinger too was heartened. Even while still in China, he sent Shultz a message urging him to go ahead with his own trip there.

Winston Lord, who helped Kissinger engineer the original opening to China and who continues to follow the relationship closely as president of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, says that there will probably be "no real rapprochement" between China and the Soviet Union. Nor is China's willingness to resume negotiations "a crude playing of the Soviet card to make us nervous." Says Lord: "The Chinese are modestly repositioning themselves and hedging while they see whether the U.S. can get its own act together."

It is at least possible that the Soviets may make some gesture of accommodation to the Chinese, such as pulling back some troops from the border. While that would not come close to fulfilling Peking's conditions for normal relations with Moscow, it might accelerate the apprehension in the U.S. about the value of the China connection. That, in turn, could further embolden the Taiwan lobby, weaken the resistance within the Administration to new, more provocative arms sales to Taiwan, and further undermine Sino-U.S. relations.

A far happier outcome would be for the Chinese to stop their public scolding of President Reagan and Secretary Shultz, entice them to Peking, and offer them in person the sorts of reassurances they have been trying to convey through Private Citizens Nixon and Kissinger. The geopolitical imperatives that brought the two nations together a decade ago are now more compelling than ever. But the mutual confidence and respect that Nixon and Chou En-lai were able to establish have not proved to be transferable to their successors. For the strategic partnership between China and the U.S. to survive, there will have to be a restoration of some personal rapport between the principal partners themselves. --By Strobe Talbott

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