Furious Volley in a No-Win Match

By WALTER ISAACSON

Tennis Star Hu Na gains asylum and strains U.S.-Chinese ties

To her supporters the issue was one of political persecution. Reacting to what she viewed as ominous pressure to join the Communist Party, 19-year-old Chinese Tennis Star Hu Na one night last July slipped out of a California hotel during a tennis tour and went into hiding at a friend's home. But to Peking the issue was a critical test of Chinese-American relations. Worried that Washington might grant Hu Na political asylum, ViceChairman Deng Xiaoping urged the U.S. last August to consider "the greater interests of the relations between the two countries."

For more than eight months, the U.S. agonized over the decision. At the State Department, the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs argued in favor of granting Hu asylum; its China desk, fearing further deterioration of ties with Peking, disagreed on legal grounds. In the end, the department sent the Immigration and Naturalization Service a weakly worded recommendation in Hu's favor. INS then stalled on her request. But last week, after political pressure began to build, the Justice Department made the final announcement: Justice prevailed. Hu was granted asylum.

The reaction in Peking was fast and furious. In a chilly half-hour meeting, Vice Foreign Minister Han Xu delivered a stiff protest to American Ambassador Arthur Hummel Jr. Social contacts with American diplomats in China were instantly chilled, and cultural and athletic exchange programs were suspended for the rest of the year, the first official downgrading of ties by Peking since diplomatic relations between the two countries were formally restored in January 1979. At the minimum, the Hu Na incident symbolized the growing tensions between the Reagan Administration and the People's Republic. "The U.S. Government has kept doing things that infringe on China's sovereignty, interfere in its internal affairs and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," read Peking's protest. In fact, China had hoped to prevent the Hu Na case from adding to the current strains with the U.S. and had sent signals that it would not strongly object if its star tennis player were given an immigration status that did not carry the nettlesome label of political asylum.

The net effect of the Hu Na decision was to underscore far deeper strains:

> China remains livid over continued American arms sales to the independent regime on Taiwan. The week before last, Peking officials repeatedly urged a visiting delegation of Congressmen, led by House Speaker Tip O'Neill, to downgrade U.S. support of Taiwan. O'Neill's admission that he was unaware the issue was so sensitive utterly astonished the Chinese--and American diplomats as well. According to Peking, U.S. plans to sell Taiwan $800 million worth of weapons this year (vs. $600 million in 1982) represent a serious violation of an agreement signed last August in which the U.S. pledged to phase out such deals. The Administration argues that the 1983 sales represent a drop, after inflation, from the $600 million of arms sold to Taiwan in 1979. TIME has learned there are yet more arms sales problems on the horizon: Taiwan is currently pressing the U.S. to approve the sale of modern surface-to-air defensive missiles.

> Peking is bitter about U.S. restrictions on the export of high technology and quotas on China's textile imports. Even though Reagan loosened the technology controls last year, China resents that it is still in a more restrictive category than India, which, Peking points out, has close ties to the Soviets. Failure to reach agreement on the amount of Chinese textiles that could be sold in the U.S. resulted in the quota's being frozen at the 1982 level.

> The most bizarre issue involves a federal court decision in Alabama that China is liable for $41 million in payments on railway bonds issued by the imperial government in 1911. Over the years American speculators bought the bonds for pennies on the dollar and now are planning to ask that U.S. courts order the seizure of Chinese assets. U.S. officials have tried to explain to Peking that the principle of separation of powers prevents the Administration from intervening and killing the claim. The Chinese, incredulous at the notion that Washington cannot simply squelch the judgment, have refused U.S. entreaties to contest the ruling in an American federal appeals court.

Peking's growing estrangement from Washington has been accompanied by timid but worrisome steps toward rapprochement with Moscow. Although the major Sino-Soviet disputes are still unresolved, trade between the two nations is increasing and the first Soviet tourists in two decades will be allowed in China this year. Small symbols of ties with the U.S.S.R. have been highlighted in the Chinese press. Said one Western diplomat in Peking: "The Soviets have a golden opportunity, in that Sino-U.S. relations right now are going nowhere." With some irritation, Washington officials point out that the 1982 communique that envisioned the eventual cessation of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan represented a considerable modification by Ronald Reagan of long-held views on the subject of China policy. "There's a growing backlash among policymakers in this town," said one U.S. Government official. "They're saying, 'No matter what we do, there is no way to please the Chinese.' "

For all that happened, however, policymakers in the U.S. and China still share compelling parallel interests vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Both countries seek to ensure that Moscow does not completely dominate the Eurasian land mass. China's primary national security problem, at least for the foreseeable future, will continue to be its long border with the Soviet Union. Still, as last week's events made clear, national security is not the only issue about which the Chinese feel very strongly.

--By Walter Isaacson. Reported by David Aikman/Peking and Ross H. Munro Washington

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN, Ross H. Munro This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.