Published by World Tibet Network News - Saturday, 2 December 1995

By ELAINE KURTENBACH - Associated Press Writer

BEIJING, Dec. 2, 1995 (AP) -- Just two weeks ago, Chinese President Jiang Zemin shook hands with Vice President Al Gore and declared that Sino-U.S. ties, strained over Taiwan and trade issues, had returned to normal.

Judging from China's latest moves, however, normal these days isn't so great.

While Jiang hobnobbed with other Asian leaders at the regional economic forum in Osaka, Japan, the 3 million-strong army that he heads was engaged in maneuvers along the Chinese coast facing Taiwan.

It subsequently announced that it had charged Wei Jingsheng, China's most famous dissident, with the capital crime of trying to overthrow the government. That prompted rights groups to claim that China, having tantalized the West with the promise of increased trade, now feels free to crack down on dissenters with impunity.

The war exercises followed a series of missile tests in the sea off Taiwan, staged in retaliation for President Lee Teng-hui's unofficial visit to the United States this summer.

Last weekend, as Taiwan readied for today's national legislative elections, state-run television showed more than 200 fighter aircraft in formation and firing missiles in a massive show of firepower.

Chinese officials in Beijing say their policy toward Taiwan is unchanged.

They say the island, governed by Nationalists who fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war to the Communists in 1949, is a rebel province that will be recaptured by force if it declares independence.

China certainly appears willing to forego improved ties with Washington for the sake of influencing politics on Taiwan, hoping to scare voters away from President Lee Teng-hui. It views his efforts to raise Taiwan's international profile as moves toward independence.

Lee insists he is not seeking independence. But China apparently suspects he is doing it covertly by seeking a seat for Taiwan in the United Nations and by visiting the United States.

A Hong Kong newspaper reported Thursday that the Chinese military has drawn up a strategy to capture Taiwan in case the Taiwanese president refused to bow to Beijing and seeks independence.

The newspaper article, by veteran China-watcher Willy Wo-Lap Lam, was the latest in a series of Hong Kong reports indicating China intends to maintain its pressure on Taiwan.

From Beijing's point of view, the United States is at fault.

"The U.S. side has constantly created trouble on the issues of Taiwan, Tibet, trade, human rights and arms control," said a recent editorial by the official Xinhua News Agency.