The Hindu : Beijing for constructive cooperation with U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 24, 2002

International

International

Beijing for constructive cooperation with U.S.

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE Oct. 23. As the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, "looks forward'' to his prospective summit with his American counterpart, George W. Bush, later this week, Beijing has sought to turn the spotlight on the new possibilities of a ``constructive and cooperative'' relationship.

China's mood on the eve of the summit at Mr. Bush's ranch at Crawford in Texas is one of expectations about the evolution of a strategic relationship.

A paradigm shift towards the status of definitive allies is not something that China is hinting at as either a win-win outcome or even a political wish. Outwardly, the most significant aspect of the prospective summit is that Mr. Jiang, a perceived architect of Beijing's present foreign policy that bristles with a U.S.-orientation, might be making his last visit to America as China's head of state, given the possibility of a change at the helm of the Communist Party of China at a national congress next month. Viewed in this perspective, the Crawford summit might be an occasion for the Chinese President to firm up his foreign policy legacy in tune with his perception of Beijing's vital interests.

Ever since the former U.S. President, Richard Nixon, travelled to Beijing for talks with Mao Tse-Tung in the 1970s, the interactions between the chief executives of these two countries have turned into a political folklore of both mystique and substance. The folklore of combative and complicated relationship has even spawned the "investigative history'' that has been intriguingly named by Patrick Tyler, the author, as "a great wall''. It is against such a complex backdrop that Mr. Jiang and Mr. Bush will try to look at bilateral relations in the present overriding context of a globalised ``anti-terror campaign''.

The issue of international terrorism apart, the two leaders have before them a quite obvious agenda. For Beijing, the issues of America's strategic bottom-line as regards Taiwan and China's economic integration with the international system are of prime concern.

In some contrast, Iraq and North Korea are the complicated `terrorism'-linked cases of intransigent states that Mr. Bush would like Mr. Jiang to look at through the American prism.

As two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, both China and the U.S. will pay considerable attention to both Iraq and North Korea. However, Beijing's historical expertise on the Korean questions in its neighbourhood will point to the relative primacy of the Pyongyang puzzle. Significantly, China has made common cause with the U.S. about the need to convert North Korea into a nuclear-weapons-free zone. Other issues such as those pertaining to the "human rights situation'' in China might, just might, also figure.

On the whole, though, Mr. Jiang's approach may be determined by two aspects. Authoritative Chinese sources told The Hindu that China, historically, "is not a hegemonistic power'' and that the U.S. might do well to ascertain why it "has enemies'' to contend with.

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