Envoy Reaches Out to Beijing For Taiwanese
By John PomfretWashington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 1, 2000; Page A13
BEIJING, March 31 –– An American scientist who helped negotiate arms control treaties with the Soviet Union came to China tonight on a sensitive and unannounced trip to talk to Chinese leaders about Taiwan. His arrival coincided with reports that the Beijing leadership is embroiled in a debate about how best to reach its overriding goal of absorbing the island.
Jeremy J. Stone, president of the Federation of American Scientists, came to China from Taiwan, where he had met with President-elect Chen Shui-bian and Lee Yuan-tzu, the Nobel laureate who has become one of Chen's closest advisers on an evolving policy toward Beijing.
Noting this, a Chinese source called Stone an "unofficial representative" of the Taiwanese government-in-waiting. But Bi-khim Hsiao, chief of the international department of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party, said Stone is representing only himself, adding: "It's not like we've asked him to carry a message for us. . . . What we're trying to do is to find ways to communicate."
Whatever his status, Stone's trip to China was seen as another indication of the careful approach Chen has taken toward China since he was elected on March 18, unseating the Nationalists 51 years after they fled a Communist revolution in China and set up their own government on the island. Chen has invited China's senior leaders to his inauguration on May 20, for instance, and he has vowed that he will not declare Taiwanese independence despite a long history of favoring it.
By encouraging Stone's participation in the contacts, Chen decided to work with a man who is familiar with sensitive negotiations because of his arms control work with the Soviets. Sources in Beijing said that Stone and Lee, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1986, have been close friends for years, and that Lee played a role in encouraging Stone to take this trip.
Over the next four days here, Stone is scheduled to meet with Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen, the chief architect of China's Taiwan policy; Gen. Xiong Guangkai, a top policymaker with the People's Liberation Army; and officials at the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, sources said.
Contacted in a small Beijing hotel, Stone declined comment other than to say he wants to avoid attention. "Please allow me to fade back into the woodwork," he said.
In the run-up to Taiwan's vote, China launched a series of diplomatic salvos, indirectly threatening war if Chen was elected because of his long-standing pro-independence views. Just days before the election, China's premier, Zhu Rongji, threatened to spill "Chinese blood" if Taiwan indefinitely refuses to unite with China. Since the vote, that tone has been replaced by silence.
But U.S. national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger had a difficult two days of talks regarding Taiwan in China earlier this week, Chinese sources said. A senior American official said the talks were productive; other sources said that they were tense and that Berger's Chinese interlocutors appeared concerned about any U.S. support of Chen and the possibility of more U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
Because of his stand on independence, Chen, a 50-year-old former maritime lawyer, has a bad reputation in this capital. His victory caught China's leadership off-guard. Two Communist Party sources said the failure of China's top Taiwan watchers to predict the election results has sparked confusion in the foreign policy establishment here.
While a senior U.S. official on Thursday characterized China's response to Chen's victory so far as "prudent," two Chinese officials familiar with policy debates about the Taiwan issue said "chaotic" was a better word. Party officials place the confusion in the context of a leadership that is unsure of itself and lacks direction.
President Jiang Zemin appears to be buffeted by different party and military factions urging him to get tough or lower the pressure on Taiwan. Mindful of his legacy and concerned that a mistake on the Taiwan issue could cost him his job in the 2002 Communist Party conference, Jiang is described by sources as paralyzed by the new developments.
One major problem is that, in a controversial decision by senior party officials, China has set a precondition for reunification talks--that Chen must accept the "one China" principle before dialogue resumes. That principle holds there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of it, sharply different from Taiwan's insistence that it be treated like a separate state.
"We are painting ourselves into a corner," said one official in Beijing with links to China's security services. "We are being tough when we should be soft and passive when we should be taking the initiative."
Another official said it appears that Wang Daohan, China's long-time top Taiwan negotiator, might be sidelined. He returned to Shanghai late last week after a meeting on Taiwan in Beijing, "unhappy about the government's direction," the official said.
Wang has pushed a softer line on Taiwan for years, according to Lin Chong-bin, an expert on China at Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, arguing that more trade and contacts, and fewer military threats, are the keys to improved relations and ultimate reunification. Wang could not be reached for comment.
Sources said Stone would not be meeting Wang, although he apparently tried.
Chinese party sources expressed worry that China might be on the verge of losing an opportunity to improve ties with Taiwan because the leadership is concerned about the appearance of weakness. One source in particular said the leadership seems stuck on the words of China's late leader, Deng Xiaoping, who came up with the concept of "one country, two systems"--the formula used to manage the return of Hong Kong and Macao to Chinese rule.
China says it wants to apply that formula to Taiwan, but almost no one in Taiwan supports "one country, two systems," the source noted.
"If Deng were alive he would throw this out and create another formula," the official said. "But now these men argue that they have principles and we must stick to our principles. Deng didn't have any principles. But he understood power and knew how to get things done. I have argued that Deng was one of us. If he can be great, so can we."
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