Anger over Arms to Taiwan

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

Protests from Peking, Taipei and true-blue rightists

In handling foreign policy, the Reagan Administration sometimes seems to have a perverse gift for making a well-intended gesture in a way that pleases no one. A case in point is last week's decision on arms sales to Taiwan. The Administration's proposed compromise managed to offend, simultaneously, both China and Taiwan, and to alienate further a large constituency of American conservatives who fear that the President is abandoning their cause.

John Holdridge, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was in Peking for talks with the Chinese government, when the State Department announced that one of the key issues the Chinese wanted to discuss had already been resolved, unilaterally. Confronted with Taiwan's request to buy a U.S. fighter jet more sophisticated than its present model, Northrop's F-5E, and China's countervailing demand that all U.S. arms sales to Taiwan cease, the White House tried to split the difference. Taiwan could continue to get the F-5E, which it co-produces with Northrop, but could not have a successor plane, the F-5G, which can carry radar-guided missiles.

The Peking government, which insists that Taiwan is an integral part of China, was predictably angry, at least as much at the awkward timing of the announcement as at its substance. Railed the official New China News Agency: "This act constitutes an encroachment on China's sovereignty and interference in her internal affairs. It cannot but arouse the indignation of the Chinese people." Chinese spokesmen accused the U.S. of smugly relying on Peking's fear of Soviet aggression. Said one official: "Some Americans seem to think that China is so afraid that it will never take the risk of any break in the relations with the U.S. This is a very dangerous point of view."

The uproar provided China an excuse to withhold, at least for the moment, a key concession Holdridge had been sent to obtain: Peking's denunciation of the Soviet role in the military crackdown in Poland. Nonetheless, U.S. diplomats were heartened that the Chinese did not carry out their earlier threats to downgrade relations with the U.S. if it continued to sell arms to Taiwan.

The Taipei government accepted Reagan's decision as a mild disappointment. It chose to emphasize the continuance of arms sales and hailed Reagan's "reaffirmation of concern for the continued well-being of the people of the Republic of China."

By far the angriest response to the decision came from Reagan's fellow conservatives. Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa accused Reagan of breaking the statutory U.S. defense commitments guaranteed by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. California Senator S.I. Hayakawa charged the President with "kowtowing to Peking." Said Senator John East of North Carolina: "I'm very troubled by this Taiwan thing. It's very disconcerting." Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Reagan's most militant and influential critic on the right, suggested that aides were prompting Reagan to "imitate" the "disastrous foreign policies of Carter and Kissinger."

The loudest protests of all were from New Right fund raisers and lobbyists. Said Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus: "Conservatives have absolutely no stake in Reagan's foreign policy. Neither does Ronald Reagan, though I'm not sure he knows it." Phillips and other conservatives saw the Taiwan decision as yet another disturbing example of how "their" President has been taken over by the Establishment. They resent the ascendancy of "moderates" and "George Bush people" in appointive jobs while loyalists of the right are passed over.

Especially troubling to them is the resignation of the New Right's White House contact, Lyn Nofziger, assistant to the President for political affairs. Relegated to secondary status at the White House and limited in influence, despite his long association with Reagan, Nofziger will become a Washington political consultant. Said Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail financier who is organizing an ad hoc conference of rightists to condemn Reagan: "It's obvious that the Administration is beginning to move away from the kind of views we thought it had."

The conservatives are also worried that Secretary of State Haig is now in full control of diplomacy and is promoting aides with close ties to Henry Kissinger at the expense of conservative true believers. After William Clark was appointed National Security Adviser, Haig chose Career Diplomat Walter Stoessel and former Kissinger Colleague Lawrence Eagleburger for the No. 2 and No. 3 jobs at State. In doing so, he passed over a New Right favorite, James L. Buckley, Under Secretary for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. Buckley, frequently cut out of decision making even on his own turf, is known to be deeply unhappy, and there is speculation that he will soon quit.

Further frustrating the New Right has been the yearlong delay in Congress on such "social issues" as busing and abortion, while legislators struggled with taxes and economy. Some New Right Senators, like Republican Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, insist that 1982 must be "card-calling time" on the social issues.

Reagan's defenders insist that the zealots are protesting too much. They point out that the F-5E decision does not leave the Taiwanese defenseless. The President has not bent his knee to Moscow and has proved his determination to beef up U.S. defenses, a favorite far-right cause. Hard-line conservatives have been appointed to a number of key posts, notably James Watt to head the Interior Department and Fred Ikle and Richard Perle as key policy advisers at the Pentagon. In domestic policy, Reagan has started to fulfill the most important conservative goal of all: shrinking the Federal Government. What the New Rightists forget, moreover, is that Reagan's own program never coincided entirely with their own. And, like all Presidents, he has learned that judicious compromise is the key to legislative success. Finally, the New Rightists face an agonizing dilemma: If they abandon Reagan, where do they go except back into the wilderness of opposition? --By William A. Henry III. Reported by Richard Bernstein/Peking and Evan Thomas/Washington

With reporting by Richard Bernstein/Peking, Evan Thomas/Washington

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