South China Morning Post Monday, June 14, 1999
Beijing willing to mend Washington ties
WILLY WO-LAP LAM
Beijing has signalled its willingness to improve
relations with the US despite the mainland's
decision to deploy more resources to fight
"hegemonism".
Official newspapers yesterday quoted
Vice-Premier Qian Qichen as saying Beijing
would not pursue an adversarial policy towards
the United States.
On a visit to Uzbekistan, Mr Qian said: "China
will not adopt a confrontational policy towards
America. China and the US have normal
diplomatic ties."
The Politburo member said the fact that
Premier Zhu Rongji had visited America even
after Nato started bombing Yugoslavia showed
"there is no change in Chinese diplomacy and
that its reform and open-door policy also
remains unchanged".
Mr Qian said Beijing would continue to differ
with the US over Kosovo. However, he
highlighted the fact that in the United Nations
Security Council, Beijing abstained from voting
on the motion authorising peacekeeping forces
in Kosovo.
Analysts said Mr Qian's largely conciliatory
statement signalled the leadership's willingness
to patch up ties with Washington in the run-up
to the Beijing visit by US envoy Thomas
Pickering.
In internal discussions, leaders including
President Jiang Zemin had said that Beijing
had not abandoned Deng Xiaoping's policy of
"not seeking to confront the US".
Mr Jiang quoted another Deng dictum at an
internal meeting: "While relations with the US
will not be extremely good, there are limits to
how far they can deteriorate."
The official media yesterday quoted former
US secretary of state Dr Henry Kissinger, an
architect of US-China rapprochement, as
saying in Wuhan, Hubei province, that the
latest crisis in bilateral ties "will be resolved
very well after efforts by the two
governments".
A diplomatic source said Beijing was sending
messages to Washington that it wanted to
resume normal economic, trade and
technological co-operation.
He said progress in bilateral ties depended on
whether, given the "anti-Chinese" sentiments
of Congress and the American public, the
administration of President Bill Clinton could
make concessions to Beijing on issues such as
the latter's accession to the World Trade
Organisation.
A Beijing source said both Mr Jiang and
Premier Zhu were under pressure from
hardliners who wanted to revise Deng's
"pro-US policy".
The source said while Mr Jiang was committed
to repairing ties with the US, he felt it
necessary to make hawkish statements on the
need to boost national defence and to counter
a Washington-led "anti-China containment
policy".