Caught in the Squeeze

Bush's visit to Peking fails to solve the Taiwan muddle

The scene was deceptively convivial. There was Vice President George Bush, smiling affably as his host, Chinese Communist Party Vice Chairman Deng Xiaoping, raised a glass of mao-tai in a toast to Sino-American friendship. In fact, after two days of talks with China's top leadership, Bush had failed to mend a relationship between the two nations that has been deteriorating virtually from the day President Ronald Reagan took office. When Bush returned to Washington last week, he could only say that he was taking some unspecified "new ideas" back to the President, together with a Chinese warning that the problem remained a "time bomb." The issue: how the U.S. could build its ties with the world's most populous nation without turning its back on an old friend, Taiwan.

For a decade, Sino-American relations have been defined by the Shanghai Communique signed during President Richard Nixon's historic visit to Peking in 1972. In that document, the U.S. agreed that mainland China and the island republic of Taiwan, which is governed by the Nationalist Party that fled the mainland after its defeat by the Communists in 1949, constitute "one China." Implicit was the understanding that the U.S., while not severing its ties to Taiwan altogether, would scale them down progressively. In that spirit, the Carter Administration in 1979 closed the U.S. embassy in Taipei and established full diplomatic relations with Peking.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Candidate Reagan challenged that bipartisan policy. He said that President Carter had treated Taiwan shabbily, arguing that the U.S. had a continuing obligation to help defend Taiwan. Soon after taking office, Reagan was faced with a request from Taiwan for advanced F-5G jet fighters. Although the President later tried to mollify the Chinese by proposing instead to extend coproduction of the less sophisticated F-5E jets, he irritated Peking by sending Congress a proposal last month to sell $60 million worth of military spare parts to Taiwan.

The Chinese accuse Washington of sustaining the old "two Chinas" policy that plainly is incompatible with the provisions of the Shanghai Communique. Peking has threatened to downgrade relations with the U.S. if the Administration continues to give military support to Taiwan. Such a step would be a severe foreign policy defeat for the Administration.

Bush, who served as head of the U.S.'s liaison office in China in 1974-75 and is the highest-ranking member of the Administration yet to visit China, arrived in Peking bearing a reassuring personal letter from Reagan. Though the Chinese received Bush with personal expressions of friendship, neither his entreaties nor Reagan's letter changed any minds in Peking. Deng underscored the seriousness of the Taiwan issue by asserting that he hoped Bush's visit would "dispel the shadows and dark clouds that hang over our relations."

Some Administration officials believe that China has as much interest as the U.S. in maintaining close ties. The stubborn Chinese position, they argue, only reflects internal struggles as Deng tries to accommodate hard-liners in his party. But that view may underestimate the depth of Chinese feeling about Taiwan. "It's a matter of national pride, of sovereignty," says a Peking intellectual. "If we compromise on this score, future generations will curse us for having sold out."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.