Jiang fails to ease fears of Chinese influence
Jiang fails to ease fears of Chinese influence
By Gilles Campion
BEIJING (AFP): President Jiang Zemin returned home Tuesday after a four-country tour and a major summit that failed to remove fears about Chinese influence in Southeast Asia.
Jiang rounded off the tour in Vietnam, after visiting Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, where he also attended a summit of the 18-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
On returning he sent a warm message of thanks to Vietnam's for the "grand and friendly reception," Xinhua news agency reported.
But at each stop on the tour, Jiang rammed home a more important message: China has no plans for greatness other than to become an economic power.
Jiang, the Chinese communist party's general secretary, also tried to sidestep the thorny question of rival claims over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The tactic succeeded in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, but not in Hanoi, whose navy was routed by Chinese warships in a 1988 flareup.
A western diplomat commented that Jiang's tour "reaffirmed the chief principles governing relations between China and the other states (in the region): the right to follow one's own line, no interference in international affairs, especially in human rights, and finally, insistence on Beijing's sovereignty over Taiwan).
"At the same time, China also declared its willingness to join all conferences and forums on market economics, and take part in building a huge free-trade zone on the Pacific rim," he said.
China had initially joined with Malaysia on opposing a date for APEC free trade. But in the end it left Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to twist in the wind as the sole holdout at the summit.
Under the Bogor Declaration of Nov. 15, industrialized members of APEC will scrap barriers on trade and investment by 2010, and the others a decade later.
China's evident hope was that by signing up to the date, they would win US support for its bid to re-enter the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by the end of the year.
"By committing themselves to a scheme which is scheduled to take effect in a quarter of a century, the Chinese have not made much of a concession," an expert on Chinese affairs said. "And they can also use it as a lever on the Americans, to demand a quid pro quo."
Jiang, in his summit with US President Bill Clinton, also stonewalled American concerns on human rights. He set five "principles" for recasting Sino-American relations, chief of which was non-interference in each other's affairs.
On the question of bilateral relations with China's Southeast Asian neighbors, Jiang hailed the growth in trade and investment with Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore and voiced support for Mahathir's plan for an East Asia Economic Caucus, a forum that would exclude the United States.
In Jakarta, in a gesture that is sure to be appreciated by President Suharto, Jiang pledged that China had no plans to develop a third column among ethnic Chinese in Indonesia: "China will never use people of Chinese origin living in Indonesia to seek political or economic gain in that country."
However, his trip to Vietnam was somewhat marred by the question of the Spratlys and the Paracel Islands, a South China Sea archipelago occupied by China.
Vietnamese leaders publicly raised the question of the future of the two areas, forcing Jiang to admit that "there exist problems between China and Vietnam."
"We should try not to let these problems, which cannot be settled immediately, stand in the way of development between our countries," he said.