Trade might help mend relationship

Washington Bureau Chief FRITZ E-mail: Click here Archive

By SARA FRITZ

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001

WASHINGTON -- Now that the crew of a U.S. spy plane has returned from 11 days in captivity in China, relations between the two countries are expected to return to normal. But normal, in this case, does not necessarily mean tranquil or friendly.

Experts say the obvious tension between China's flourishing nationalism and its desire for economic trade with the United States will continue to complicate dealings between the countries.

Added to this volatile mix is the intense resentment the Chinese feel toward Americans, which Americans are beginning to feel in return. These sentiments give leaders in both countries less latitude to make diplomatic concessions.

In the next few weeks, hard-liners in Congress will advocate retaliation against China in any number of ways, including selling sophisticated weaponry to Chinese rival Taiwan and opposition to staging the 2008 Olympics in China. No matter how these issues are resolved, the Bush administration is not likely to yield to Beijing's demands to end Navy spy missions off China's coast.

Thus the future of U.S.-China relations is certain to be rough. "We're in for a highly difficult and complex relationship with China," predicted Bates Gill, senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on Asian affairs.

Of course, both countries are experienced in dealing with their mutual antagonism.

Minxin Pei, Chinese expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, compares U.S.-Chinese relations to a large tree that continues to stand despite numerous efforts to cut it down. The most recent incident, he said, was just "another whack of a big ax."

The 11-day standoff over the spy plane is by no means the first such breach in U.S.-Chinese relations in recent years. Diplomacy between the countries has been complicated by everything from China's bloody crackdown on democracy movements in 1989 to the accidental U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

The most recent crisis was precipitated by the more than 200 spy flights each year that U.S. Navy pilots have been making in the area where the EP-3 collided with a Chinese fighter jet, forcing it to make an emergency landing on Hainan island.

Analysts say China's handling of the incident showed that political leaders and diplomats in Beijing do not have firm control over the military officials in the South who took charge of the 24-person crew and plane after it landed.

"We learned one important fact from this encounter -- the political leadership in China is unable to be as decisive as many thought because of both domestic and military pressures," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin does not control China in the same autocratic way that his predecessors Mao Tse-tung and Deng Ziaoping did, experts say. Instead, he has been forced to be a coalition-builder who must find solutions to satisfy various interest groups within the government.

In the latest incident, leaders of the People's Liberation Army played what Gill described as "an obstruction and difficult role" by supplying Beijing leaders with misinformation about the collision and landing.

Douglas Paal, president of the Asia Pacific Policy Center and a China expert who served in the first Bush administration, says that military officials who rule in southern China from their headquarters in Quangzhou have a reputation as "cowboys." Among other things, he said, they have been accused of stealing high-priced cars in Hong Kong and selling them in Beijing.

The Chinese people were unaware of the routine U.S. spy missions along the coastline until the EP-3 landed on Chinese soil. Pei said the news of the spy flight fed a Chinese "victim complex," which stems from foreign imperialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"Portraying itself as the aggrieved, weaker victim in the current entanglement is standard operating procedure from China," Gill said.

In Beijing, Chinese leaders were caught between the angry sentiments of the people and their desire to maintain good trade relations with the United States, which they see as essential to modernization. Paal said Jiang prolonged the crisis just long enough to satisfy the outrage, but not long enough to create a serious snag in trade relations.

In Washington, meanwhile, conservatives in Congress are demanding retaliation against China.

"This incident calls into question our current policy of sending American trade dollars to a nation that has displayed signs of hostility toward the United States," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. "Every American, in government and out, should ask themselves if it is in our national interest for the United States to pay for the military of a nation that conducts itself in a less than friendly manner."

To satisfy critics such as Hunter, President Bush is expected to take more rhetorical jabs at the Chinese. But most analysts do not expect him to take action that would interrupt trade. Nor is he expected to bow to demands that the United States oppose China's bid to host the Olympics.

Nicholas Lardy, a Brookings foreign policy expert, said continued trade will be the key to healing the breach between the governments. The United States offers the biggest foreign market for Chinese goods, and China is the United States' fourth-largest trading partner. One of the chief U.S. exports to China is fertilizer from Florida.

"The economic relationship has a momentum and durability that will help the overall relationship," Lardy said.

Later this month, however, Bush is expected to approve sales of new weaponry to Taiwan, a step that will again inflame the Chinese military and arouse suspicions among people who see the United States as a threat. Experts say Bush is keeping this decision on a "separate track" and that he has not mentioned it in the context of the spy plane incident.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, predicted "a hardening of congressional views" against China, and encouraged Bush to proceed with military sales to Taiwan.

"Irrespective of this entire incident," Hyde said, "the Bush administration should proceed with arms sales to Taiwan based on defensive needs of that democratic island and in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act."

Bush also will be under pressure from Congress and the Pentagon to continue reconnaissance flights in international airspace off China's coast, despite opposition from Beijing. Chinese and American officials have agreed to discuss this issue in meetings beginning Wednesday.

Gill predicted the meetings would produce some agreement on "rules of the road" when Chinese pilots encounter U.S. planes in international airspace. But he said the United States will not stop the flights, and he suggested that such demands are "disingenuous" because Chinese planes routinely fly similar spy missions directed at Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan.

"It is right and appropriate to conduct intelligence gathering missions of this nature," said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. "As long as we are respectful of the airspace and boundaries of countries like China, these missions have an important place in our nation's defense and information system."

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