DATE=12/15/1999 TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT TITLE=YEARENDER CHINA / U-S NUMBER=5-44993 BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON DATELINE=BEIJING CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: U-S relations with China took a nosedive this year after NATO missiles struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. VOA Beijing correspondent Roger Wilkison reports ties are slowly getting back to normal but could be subject to new strains as the United States heads into an election year. TEXT: After the exchange of visits by Presidents Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton in 1997 and 1998 and their proclamation of a strategic partnership between Washington and Beijing, U-S-China ties were riding high for a while, but, in 1999, they went into a downward spiral from which they have not yet recovered. Things started going wrong after the western alliance launched air strikes against Yugoslavia last March to stop it from persecuting ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo. To China, a country with its own ethnic problems, that was gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. The fact that NATO bypassed the United Nations Security Council infuriated Beijing, which could have vetoed the action. Some Chinese officials were left feeling that their country had little weight in international affairs. In April, Premier Zhu Rongji went to Washington with a list of market opening concessions he thought could pave the way for China to join the World Trade Organization. But President Clinton backed away from the deal after persuading himself that he could not sell it to Congress. In Chinese eyes, Mr. Zhu was humiliated, and conservatives at home accused him of selling out to the Americans. Then came the final humiliation. NATO bombs rained down on China's Belgrade embassy, killing three people and injuring 27. That prompted violent protests outside U-S diplomatic missions in China. /////SOUND: MOBS SCREAMING IN FRONT OF U-S EMBASSY -ESTABLISH AND FADE///// With tacit government support, mobs of angry Chinese for three days hurled stones and paint bombs at the American Embassy in Beijing. They also destroyed the U-S Consul General's residence in Chengdu. The United States apologized for the bombing, saying it was due to a string of intelligence and targeting blunders. China later accepted four and a half million dollars from Washington for the families of those killed or wounded. But Beijing, until late in the year, was still publicly saying that the bombing had been deliberate. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger - the most respected American statesman among Chinese officials - took a different tack in explaining the bombing. /////KISSINGER ACTUALITY///// I regret the bombing of the embassy in Belgrade. I have said repeatedly that our explanations are so incredible that they have to be true. Because if we did it deliberately, we would surely have come with a better explanation. So I really think it should be treated as a regrettable and stupid accident no matter how strange the explanation may sound. /////END ACTUALITY///// But China was not about to accept any explanation. It immediately suspended military contacts and talks on human rights, arms control, security and Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization. The bombing fueled a revival of Chinese nationalism, a deep mistrust of the West -- and in particular the United States. Bill Jenner, a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, says the bombing also revived a culture of victimization. /////JENNER ACTUALITY///// I regard this as a very dangerous tendency. It wasn't so much a feature of the Mao period, when I think there was much more national self-confidence and self-respect. I think the revival of the victimization culture is perhaps a mark of the weakness of the government at the moment and the search for external things to blame for the problems within the society. /////END ACTUALITY///// With a sluggish economy and unemployment rising, China's leaders know they need to open up further to the outside world and attract more foreign investment to maintain high growth rates. Presidents Jiang and Clinton met in New Zealand in September at an Asia-Pacific economic conference and resolved to re-start talks on China's entry into W-T-O. Two months later, a landmark deal was announced whereby China will grant greater access to American goods and services and agree to play by the rules of international trade. U-S Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky was ecstatic. /////BARSHEFSKY ACTUALITY///// The United States and China have had a rather tumultuos relationship -- ups and downs, lots of swings. But an agreement of this sort, with its breadth, with its scope, with its emphasis on rule of law, with its consistency with China's own internal reform process, can help to anchor the relationship between the United States and China, in a most fundamental way. /////END ACTUALITY///// But there are pitfalls ahead. The trade deal must be approved by the U-S Congress, which under W-T-O rules, has to grant permanent normal trading status to Beijing. Congress is a hotbed of protectionist and anti-Chinese sentiment. Allegations that China stole U-S nuclear secrets have whipped up a frenzy of China-bashing. And, as the United States moves into an election year, China could become a major issue in domestic politics. Chinese officials complain that, every time relations with the United States show signs of improvement, anti-Chinese elements in Congress try to sabotage ties. Wenran Jiang, a Chinese political scientist at the University of Alberta in Canada, argues that, in an election year, it is difficult for Beijing to have normal ties with Washington. /////JIANG ACTUALITY///// The American side will not be stable. The Chinese side, then, will probably just want to sit through this election year. /////END ACTUALITY///// The congressional vote on the China-U-S trade deal is not expected until next year. But the longer debate stretches out, the bigger the chance it has of falling victim to electoral politics. If Congress turns the deal down, normalization of China-U-S relations will probably have to be put on hold until a new administration takes over in 2001. (SIGNED) NEB/RW/FC 15-Dec-1999 05:17 AM EDT (15-Dec-1999 1017 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
