China sees double insult from Chen and Dalai U.S. visit
By Phil Chetwynd
BEIJING (AFP): The warm welcome being given to the Dalai Lama and Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian in the United States will be seen as a calculated insult by China which detests both men, analysts said.
The Communist leadership in Beijing reviles Chen and the Tibetan spiritual leader as separatists intent on gaining independence for Taiwan and Tibet, and forcing the break-up of China.
By hosting both men at the same time -- Chen is on a stopover in New York while the Dalai is to meet President George W. Bush Wednesday -- Washington has clearly spelled out its new priorities to Beijing.
The two visits were approved despite vociferous Chinese protests. They also come against a background of deteriorating Sino-U.S. relations and the Bush administration's suspicious and hawkish view of China.
"China will see them (the visits) as a very deliberate insult and a confrontational approach by George Bush," said Lau Sui-kai, a political analyst at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.
Chen is not scheduled to meet any U.S. officials during his 40-hour visit before he heads to Central America but he will meet influential U.S. lawmakers.
The relatively high-profile stay is in stark contrast to Chen's visit in August last year when the previous U.S. administration all but confined him to his hotel so as not to upset Beijing.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and it sees any recognition of the island's leaders on the international stage as encouragement for Taiwanese independence, which it has promised to oppose with military force.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, of the French Center for Research on Contemporary China in Hong Kong, said the two visits showed Bush was not prepared to be intimidated by China's noisy and often vitriolic rhetoric.
"Frankly the attitude of the Clinton administration, which prevented Chen from meeting with press or lawmakers, was ridiculous. Why bow to the Chinese when you are the most powerful nation in the world?" said Cabestan.
Since Bush took office promising to treat China as a rival rather than a partner, relations have plummeted and tension reached breaking point last month after a collision between a U.S. spy plane and Chinese fighter jet.
Bush's decision to sell Taiwan sophisticated new weapons, U.S. criticism of China's human rights record and the arrest of half a dozen Chinese-American scholars in China have further inflamed the situation.
China also views Bush's plans to build a National Missile Defense (NMD) as an attempt to neutralize its military power and shield Taiwan from possible attack.
Lau Siu-kai said despite the tension China had still been unsure how to evaluate Bush, until now.
"I think Beijing must come to the conclusion that as long as Bush remains U.S. president there will be a new Taiwan policy and maybe even a new Tibet policy," he said.
U.S. officials downplayed the Dalai Lama's planned meetings with Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, pointing out that former president Bill Clinton also met the Nobel laureate and that the meetings were not political.
But Jigmey Tsultrin, spokesman for the Tibetan government in exile in India, said Bush's meeting with the Dalai Lama was significant as it would take place on the 50th anniversary what China considers its "liberation" of Tibet.
"It looks like Bush will treat the Tibetan issue as a priority and put more pressure to Beijing to improve the situation for Tibetans," he said.
Earlier this month Bush appointed Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky as a special coordinator for Tibet, a move condemned by Beijing as interference in its internal affairs.
China has ruled Tibet with an iron fist since it invaded in 1949. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after an abortive anti-China uprising in 1959, and has since mounted an international campaign for greater autonomy.