Published by: World Tibet Network News Issue ID: 97/10/23

WASHINGTON October 22, (Reuters) - The Clinton administration still plans to name a ``special coordinator'' for policy on Tibet but may delay until Chinese President Jiang Zemin ends a visit here next week, the State Department said Wednesday.

China, which put down a popular uprising in the Himalayan land of Tibet in 1959, has denounced the planned appointment as meddling in its domestic affairs.

Nevertheless, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tentatively intended to create and fill the new State Department job by her self-imposed deadline of Nov. 1, James Rubin, the department spokesman, told reporters.

But he left open the possibility that the administration might miss that deadline, perhaps by just a day or two, to avoid souring Jiang's U.S. tour, the first by a Chinese chief of state in 12 years.

``Secretary Albright does intend to follow through on her commitment and name a special coordinator on Tibet by the stated timeframe,'' Rubin said at his daily briefing.

Pressed on whether Albright might delay the announcement by a matter of days to avoid ruffled feathers, Rubin replied: ``I'm not going to rule out for all time that it won't be at 12:01 on November 2nd, or November 1st, but her intention is to meet the commitment.''

Jiang, who arrives in Hawaii on Sunday on the first stop of his seven-day visit, is scheduled to meet Clinton at the White House on Oct. 29 before continuing on to Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Los Angeles. He flies home from California Nov. 2.

Both U.S. and Chinese officials hope Jiang's visit will end the eight years of frostiness that have followed China's suppression of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement.

Referring to the 12-year gap since the last visit by a Chinese chief of state, Jeff Bader, director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council, said this was an ``unnatural state of affairs for two great nations.''

In a briefing for reporters, he said the Clinton administration looked on the visit as a ``first step'' in a long-term process of improving ties. He declined to discuss whether the administration was mulling putting off the appointment until after Jiang left the country.

Rubin said the administration still had not settled on its choice to fill the new job ``and you need to figure out who the person is before you can figure when you'll announce it.''

Albright has been discussing the appointment with Samuel Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, among others, Rubin added.

Earlier in the day, a Chinese embassy spokesman told reporters at a briefing on Jiang's visit that Beijing had made ''representations'' to the United States to protest the creation of the new State Department slot.

Describing Tibet as part of Chinese territory since the 13th century, Yu Shuning, an embassy counselor, said the appointment constituted ``interference in our internal affairs.''

Albright has said a ``central objective'' of the new job would be to promote substantive dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama or his representatives.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace-prize winning Buddhist monk, fled his Himalayan homeland after the failed 1959 anti-Chinese uprising. He heads a government in exile in India and has been seeking greater autonomy for Tibet.

At a meeting with the Dalai Lama in Washington in April, Clinton promised he would press Jiang at the summit to negotiate with the Dalai Lama on resolving their differences.

The new ``special coordinator'' will also ``vigorously promote the U.S. policy of seeking to protect the unique religious, cultural and linguistic heritage of Tibet, and pressing for improved respect for human rights,'' Albright said in a July 29 letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms.

In a reminder to Albright sent Oct. 6, Helms, a North Carolina Republican, said he believed and hoped that the appointment of a high-level official to the new job would ''change the course of Tibet's tragic history.''

Advocates of greater Tibetan self-rule have been pressing the administration to fill the new job in time to play a role at the summit.

``This person needs to be part of whatever discussions take place on Tibet at the summit and surrounding the summit,'' said John Ackerly of the International Campaign for Tibet, a lobbying group in Washington with ties to the Dalai Lama's government in exile.