China lashed out Tuesday at American proposals to extend a missile-defense system to Taiwan as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wound up two days of contentious talks vowing to maintain U.S. pressure on China over its human-rights practices.
Using the strongest language yet to denounce American plans to create a missile-defense system in Asia, known as Theater Missile Defense (TMD), Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao warned Washington: “Do not engage in anything to obstruct the reunification of the motherland,” a reference to Chinese ambitions to reunify with the island of Taiwan.
A Pentagon report to Congress last week detailed a sharp increase in the deployment of Chinese missiles against Taiwan, fueling calls in the U.S. for the development of the missile-defense system to help protect U.S. forces in the event of a war.
Zhu called the report a “fabrication” that was being used to “create the pretext . . . to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan.”
The harsh tone of the comments suggested that Albright had failed to convince Chinese leaders in her talks that they have no reason to worry about TMD, especially as the technology for the system has not yet been developed.
“Instead of worrying about a decision that has not been made to deploy defensive technologies that do not exist, China should focus its energies on the real source of the problem–the proliferation of missiles,” Albright said.
She urged China to use its influence with the regime in North Korea to persuade it to curtail its missile development and to pursue a peaceful resolution of Beijing’s 50-year-old quarrel with Taiwan to avert the need for the United States to develop a TMD system.
China considers Taiwan a renegade province and regards any discussion in the U.S. of ways to defend Taiwan as an infringement on Chinese sovereignty.
More Top Picks Ladder Tossssssssssssss
The attack on U.S. policy toward Taiwan came a day after a public clash over human rights, in which Albright said that she “deplored” China’s repression of political dissent and China’s Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan accused the United States of “wantonly interfering” in Chinese affairs.
As she left Beijing for Thailand, Albright insisted the U.S. will continue to pressure China on human rights.
“I made very clear in all the meetings that it was very important for there to be a change in the atmosphere, that there had to be an end to the crackdown, there had to be the release of people,” she said.
“The United States will never apologize for speaking or publishing the truth,” she said in response to Chinese attacks on this year’s State Department report documenting human-rights abuses in China. “Trying to organize a political party is not a threat or a crime, it is a right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
These core issues–China’s human-rights record and U.S. policy toward Taiwan–have long been the most contentious issues in the often difficult relationship between the nations. But the force with which their differences erupted in public during Albright’s visit underlines how far relations have deteriorated since President Clinton’s summit with President Jiang Zemin last June.
Albright nonetheless struck an upbeat note as she left Beijing, defending America’s policy of engagement with China as worthwhile despite the absence of progress in her talks.
“Last June, our two presidents agreed to a candid dialogue on human rights. In the last two days, we have seen what a candid dialogue looks like,” she said.
“The central message I conveyed throughout my visit is that the United States remains strongly committed to principled and purposeful engagement with China, aimed at closer cooperation and concrete results.”
It is a measure of progress that the two sides are at least able to discuss issues on which they disagree without derailing the entire relationship, Albright said. “As evidenced by my meetings yesterday and today, the depth and ease of our discussions even on difficult issues has expanded dramatically,” she said.
The administration hopes for progress on negotiating China’s entry into the World Trade Organization that could be announced during Premier Zhu Rongji’s visit to Washington in April. Agreement on WTO would go a long way toward addressing another bone of contention between Washington and Beijing: America’s $59 billion trade deficit with China.
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky arrives Wednesday in Beijing with a new proposal to put to Chinese officials, according to Albright. She did not elaborate. “There remains much work to be done, but a successful outcome would be a giant step toward the integration of China into the world economy,” she said.