CHINA - US risks anger over visa to former president of Taiwan

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BBC Friday, 20 April, 2001, 22:01 GMT 23:01 UK

US risks China anger over visa

Mr Lee: Heading for Japan and the US The United States has granted a tourist visa to the former president of Taiwan, Lee Teng-Hui, shortly after China protested against a similar move by Japan.

The BBC Washington correspondent, Philippa Thomas, says Mr Lee's visit is likely to provoke strong opposition in Beijing.

It comes at a time of extreme diplomatic tension between the US and China, caused by the collision between an American surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet.

Earlier on Friday, Japan said it would allow Mr Lee to visit the country for medical treatment.

China, had warned Japan that bilateral relations would suffer if the visit goes ahead.

China regards Taiwan as a renegade province.

Mr Lee is planning to go the US between 30 April and 6 May and he is hoping to visit Cornell University, where he studied in the 1960s.

"We consider him to be a private individual. Travel by private persons between Taiwan and the United States is a normal part of our unofficial relationship," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

Humanitarian grounds

Our correspondent says tension between China and the US is likely to be exacerbated when the US Government makes its annual decision on weapons sales to Taiwan next week.

She says the new Republican administration is eager to promote Taiwan's ability to defend itself without signalling any support of the island's aspirations towards independence.

A Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington said on Thursday that Beijing was strongly opposed to the visit.

Japan says it approved a visa for Mr Lee's visit on humanitarian grounds. It has warned not to engage in any political activity during the trip.

Mr Lee says his trip has no political motives, but has refused to sign an written agreement confirming this.

Japanese opposition

The issue has proved divisive in the Japanese Government, with some cabinet members reportedly voicing their opposition to the trip, which comes at a time of growing tension between China and Japan.

Sino-Japanese ties are already strained by disputes over trade, and a history textbook which critics say glosses over Japan's wartime aggression.

Mr Lee, who retired a year ago, is expected to arrive in the western city of Osaka on Sunday for treatment for a serious heart condition.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2001

Answers

Friday April 20, 04:05 PM

China protests Japan visit for Taiwan ex-president

By Teruaki Ueno

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has issued a controversial visa to former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui, a move that immediately drew a strong protest from China.

The decision came after a meeting between Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and outgoing Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori late in the evening. "The Japanese government has decided to proceed with issuing a visa for humanitarian reasons," Kono told reporters.

China reacted quickly by lodging a "strong protest" with Japan. Chinese state television reported Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Japanese Ambassador Koreshige Anami Tokyo's decision violated diplomatic agreements and "undermined the basis of bilateral relations".

"China has stated many times through diplomatic channels the grave political nature of Lee Teng-hui's visit to Japan and demanded that the Japanese government ... prevent the visit," Wang was quoted as telling Anami.

The issue had been a deeply divisive one for the Japanese cabinet. "I believe that former president Lee Teng-hui has a very strong political influence. We will have a difficult period in Sino-Japanese relations," Japan's Kono told reporters following the decision.

Lee is expected to arrive in the western city of Osaka for medical checks on Sunday for a five-day visit.

ANY CONDITIONS?

"We presume Mr. Lee will not conduct any political activities," Kono said, indicating that Japan did not have a written pledge accepting such conditions.

Lee had opposed signing such an agreement.

"If (they want me) to sign, I might as well not go," Taiwan's China Times quoted Lee as saying, terming such conditions "humiliating".

Lee, 78, plans to travel to Kurashiki, about 600 km (370 miles) west of Tokyo, for medical treatment.

Vilified by China for trying to break Taiwan out of diplomatic isolation during his rule, Lee wants to visit Japan for a medical check-up after an operation in Taiwan last year to clear a clogged artery and says his trip had no political motive.

Kono had earlier advised Mori not to approve the visa request at a time when Sino- Japanese ties are already strained by disputes over trade and a Japanese school history textbook which critics say glosses over Japan's wartime aggression.

Japanese media have reported that Mori's cabinet is deeply split on the issue, with some -- including Kono -- worried about increasingly testy relations with Tokyo's giant neighbour.

Tokyo switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1972.

BAD TIMING?

Underscoring the importance of the issue to Beijing, Chinese Ambassador Chen Jian took the step of visiting the chief cabinet secretary on Thursday to say China had ordered him to voice Beijing's opposition to any visit by Lee to Japan.

"Lee, formerly a troublemaker in China-U.S. relations, is now coming out in the open as a troublemaker in China-Japan relations and a troublemaker for Asia-Pacific peace and stability," China's official Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

"He is the chief representative of Taiwan separatism and the saboteur of stability in the Taiwan Strait," it added.

Tokyo's relations with China, never easy at the best of times, grew chilly this month when Japan's Ministry of Education approved the controversial school history textbook.

Trade spats over surging imports of cheap Chinese vegetables and textiles are exacerbating friction between Beijing and Tokyo.

Taiwan, however, has urged Japan to ignore Chinese pressure and issue Lee a visa, while Lee himself took a swipe at Tokyo last weekend by calling the Japanese "more timid than a mouse".

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2001


China is ripe for, begging for, a showdown with the US. We are now in the same sort of diplomatic situation with them that we once were with Russia over things like Cuba. There is no fair dealing possible with military dictators who understand little or nothing about cooperation. The only thing they know is that if they can keep us off balance they will buy more time to plan and execute their mischief.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2001

Hole in one, Gordon.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001

China, Revealing Its True Nature

By Jim Hoagland

Sunday, April 22, 2001; Page B07

George W. Bush's early run-in with China over U.S. reconnaissance flights is more silver lining than cloud. Beijing's continuing haggling over right and wrong, and over truth and fiction, is more deeply revealing than a thousand policy memoranda or interagency meetings would be for the new president.

International law, and indisputable facts, matter little when they conflict with Beijing's version of history and the Communist Party's hold on power. China's behavior since the Hainan emergency landing strikes at the heart of the elaborate Clintonite fantasy that this is a government pretty much like any other, with rough edges that can be smoothed over with patience and diplomatic wooing.

This is a government that permits schoolchildren to blow themselves up making fireworks for export, and then lies to the nation about the children's fate. Any government that will do that will certainly lie about an airborne disaster it helped create.

Dangerously, President Jiang Zemin's government seems capable of lying to itself. The Chinese military has provided the civilian leadership with a false account of pilot Wang Wei's daredevil flying. U.S. evidence that China's pilot caused the accident was brushed away in two meetings in Beijing last week.

This is not aberrant or situational behavior by China. The recently published "Tiananmen Papers" establish in great detail how military and party leaders used false information to promote the 1989 massacre of peaceful demonstrators. A direct line connects Tiananmen and Hainan.

With the 24 American airmen and women finally freed, the Bush team has used the incident's aftermath to insist on a truthful accounting of the accident and to emphasize U.S. determination to respect international law in continuing its flights over international waters. China relies instead on its unilateral determination of coastal limits to demand peremptorily a halt to the espionage flights.

The U.S. steps establish that Washington wrote its letter of regret about the accident under duress -- and wipe away any taint that letter initially left.

Bush should continue to take the high road that China's flight into denial has helped him seize. U.S. actions toward China now should not be punitive in nature, however justified American anger would be. They should be based in principle, and clearly explained that way.

Washington should not oppose Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympics because of the Hainan incident. Bush should announce that the United States will henceforth oppose the holding of international gatherings in any country that does not respect the rule of law and political openness. (Awarding the 2008 Olympics to a new democracy such as South Africa instead of China would help underscore the point.)

An impending decision on arms sales to Taiwan should be framed similarly. The United States has legal and moral obligations to help this island democracy defend itself, however dire the consequences Beijing threatens.

Holding open the possibility of selling Taiwan an Aegis radar system in the near future if direct Chinese threats worsen is probably more effective than making the sale now. Including air-launched AMRAAM missiles and other defensive gear in this year's sale would be more militarily and politically effective in any case.

The principle that the United States should take actions it had substantial reason to take before the April 1 air collision applies to trade as well. Washington should continue to press for immediate Chinese admission to the World Trade Organization. Getting China to accept -- and live up to -- new international obligations and regulations is in the U.S. interest.

What cannot go forward after Hainan is U.S. support for Chinese ambitions to play a greater international role based on a recent record of "responsibility" and respect for international law.

Bill Clinton and his aides played up consultations with China by agreeing to "P-5" meetings of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to deal with global problems.

Beijing loved these meetings for the status they conveyed and because the talk there usually centered on punishing India for daring to become a member of the nuclear club. Any temptation the Bush team may have felt to repeat this exercise should have gone down on Hainan along with the EP-3E spy plane.

This incident should also settle an embryonic debate within the Bush administration in which some policy heavyweights have argued for a U.S. foreign policy based solely on American interests, not American values. This would supposedly reverse Clintonite mushiness.

China helps remind us that this is a false choice. A great power's values are part and parcel of its interests. Pursuing interests without regard to values is exactly where Beijing's doomed dictatorship has gone wrong.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001


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