Published by: World Tibet Network News, Thursday, June 27, 1996

By Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters

Kathy Chen in Beijing And Cacilie Rohwedder in Bonn

China appears to have shifted the focus of its international ire to Germany, just as its standoff with the U.S. over Taiwan starts to ease.

Chinese leaders canceled a July visit by German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel and summoned the German ambassador in Beijing to protest last week's German parliamentary resolution accusing China of human-rights abuses in Tibet. Other German ministers dropped plans to visit Beijing, and the two countries have suspended high-level military exchanges.

With Sino-U.S. ties looking up, Beijing appears to be playing off the U.S. against Europe -- after doing the opposite during a recent row with Washington over copyright piracy. During that dispute, China Premier Li Peng said Beijing would favor Europe over the U.S. in commercial relations because of persistent U.S.-China strains. In April, Mr. Li signed a $1.5 billion agreement to buy 30 aircraft from Europe's Airbus Industrie consortium in what analysts viewed as a warning to the U.S. to improve bilateral relations.

After the U.S. and China defused a brewing trade war over piracy this month, the two sides moved rapidly to get relations back on track. U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Walter Slocombe arrived in Beijing last night, and U.S. National Security Council Chief Anthony Lake is due in Beijing on July 5.

But many analysts argue that Chinese officials aren't being manipulative; they are just being consistent. Beijing has repeatedly underscored its inflexibility where its sovereignty is involved, they say.

"Even if China's relations with the U.S. weren't improving, it would still act tough," says Niu Jun of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "It wants to warn Germany and the rest of Europe that it won't sacrifice political principles for economic development."

With nationalist sentiment rising amid fears that the West is trying to contain China, Beijing has become especially sensitive about what it views as attempts by other countries to butt into its internal affairs. U.S.-China relations plunged a year ago after Washington granted a visa to Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui. Beijing took the gesture as tacit support for an independent Taiwan, which it considers part of China. With Germany, it took umbrage at what it considers tacit support for independence-minded Tibetans.

Until now, Bonn has bent over backward to avoid confrontation with China. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has visited Beijing four times since he came to office in 1992. On his most recent trip, last November, he paid an unusually strong tribute to his hosts by becoming the first Western leader to inspect China's armed forces since its brutal crackdown on democracy protests in 1989.

Growing public awareness of China's crackdown on unrest in Tibet led the German Parliament to act this time. And domestic political pressures forced Mr. Kohl to back Parliament, saying that the parliamentary resolution "did not warrant" China's cancellation of the visit by Mr. Kinkel, the foreign minister. The German construction and environment ministers later canceled their trips to China.

For now, German businessmen don't expect the Tibet row to affect commercial ties. "I don't see any signals that the Chinese side is trying to scale back economic relations," says Heinrich Weiss, chairman of SMS Schloemann-Siemag, a German builder of industrial plants.

But some warn that the tensions could have a wider impact. "Without a doubt, a deterioration of political relations between Germany and China would affect business relations as well," Siemens AG Chairman Heinrich von Pierer said.