April 09, 1999	atimes.com

China Zhu's mettle put to the test in hostile U.S. By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - Premier Zhu Rongji, touted as China's most charismatic leader and economic supremo, faces a tough test of his political skills and persuasiveness during his current visit to the United States. Indeed, some observers call his nine-day trip across the U.S. as ''high risk'' at a delicate time. He arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Despite talk that China considered for a while canceling Zhu's visit at the last moment because of its outrage over the U.S.-led NATO attack on Yugoslavia, the Chinese premier decided to go ahead. Too much was at stake. The April 6-14 visit is the first by a Chinese premier to the U.S. in 15 years, and comes on the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Beijing and Washington. Even before the NATO air raids against Yugoslavia began in late March, Zhu had made a solemn pledge to go to Washington in defiance of media speculation that it was going to be a difficult trip. ''I will go anyway to give them a chance to vent their spleen,'' Zhu said at his annual press conference at the end of the parliament's session in March. Despite his confidence, Zhu will face a political quagmire on this trip as the issues dividing the two countries appear to greatly outweigh their common objectives. Even so, China continues to play down the gap between the two countries, attributing the political storm to a ''handful of anti-China elements in Washington'' trying to disturb Sino-U.S. relations. In the meantime, the U.S. remain largely suspicious of Beijing for a string of reasons which it believes to be good ones. This not only shows how little the two countries understand each other, but diminishes the chances for any economic or political breakthroughs. ''The political climate toward China in the U.S. is extremely hostile at the moment,'' said David Shambaugh, a leading China watcher at the George Washington University and the Brookings Institution in Washington. The ''strategic partnership'' much heralded in the Chinese media during the two previous summits between presidents Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton has proved more of a ''strategic competition,'' according to Shambaugh. ''It's American hegemonism clashing with Chinese nationalism,'' he said. The Chinese appear to underestimate negative U.S. attitudes, which have been shaped by China's human rights abuses, the huge trade deficit, Beijing's continued threat toward Taiwan, Chinese missile proliferation and allegations of theft of nuclear technology. ''It will prove to be the work of wild and far-fetched imaginations,'' declared Li Zhaoxing, Chinese ambassador to the United States, of the charges against China of pilfering U.S. nuclear secrets and being a threat to the U.S. ''Whenever bilateral ties make headway, there are always some people who feel unhappy and come out to make trouble,'' Li said in an interview with the official China Daily on the eve of Zhu's visit. ''These are people whose Cold War mentality makes them feel left out in the cold and search for an enemy to justify their outdated agenda,'' he added. The fact that Beijing decided to give a green light to Zhu's trip despite its irritation with the U.S. over the Kosovo crisis, underlies the grave importance it attaches to its relations with the world's only superpower. The delayed confirmation for the trip came only at the weekend, reportedly after a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo weighed the pros and cons of the visit. ''China has a lot to lose if the relations deteriorate further,'' argued Shambaugh. ''It would hurt them more than it would hurt the U.S." The agenda for the trip, which will take Zhu to six American cities, is comprehensive. There are trade issues, including China's long battle to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the U.S. trade deficit with the mainland. On Tuesday, Zhu announced in Los Angeles that Washington and Beijing had resolved a long-standing dispute on wheat and other products, in a move to smooth trade ties with a view to WTO entry. But the talks will also include human rights and such strategic issues as Taiwan, North Korea, and U.S. deployment of a missile defense system in Asia. As problematic as these issues are, the Kosovo situation is likely to add an uneasy dimension to the talks Zhu will hold with Clinton and U.S. officials in Washington on Thursday, after which a joint press conference is scheduled. The NATO strike against a sovereign country, aimed at restoring Kosovo's autonomy, represents a bleak scenario for China. Beijing itself aims to be reunited with Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province. For Beijing, the Western alliance's attack on Yugoslavia to defend a minority population brings to mind unrest within its own borders, such as that in Xinjiang province and Tibet. On the eve of Zhu's visit, China's state-sanctioned media stepped up its propaganda against the NATO strikes. The Yangcheng Evening News published a picture of Clinton with an Adolf Hitler moustache, and described Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic as a ''folk hero'' fighting the armies of invaders. (Inter Press Service)

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