US-China ties under strain ahead of Hu-Bush summit

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. ties with China are becoming
strained over security and economic issues after a relative
calm, presenting a difficult challenge as President George W.
Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao meet next week.

The two leaders are eager to keep disagreements over
matters such as trade and China’s military buildup from
disrupting a relationship seen as central to international
stability and economic well-being.

But experts expect only modest results from Hu’s first
presidential visit to Washington on April 20, and many are wary
about the future as domestic political pressures grow for the
United States to treat China as the next major adversary.

“U.S.-China relations are in difficult shape,” said Daniel
Blumenthal, a former Pentagon official now at the conservative
American Enterprise Institute.

“A lot of issues that had been submerged over the last few
years have re-emerged, partly because the U.S. Congress has
taken the lead on a number of economics issues, which has
soured things,” Blumenthal told Reuters.

A major problem, according to Robert Kapp, former head of
the U.S.-China Business Council, is that centrists in Congress
inclined to encourage U.S.-China relations toward stability and
cooperation have “nearly evaporated” as a force as they left
Congress.

Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International
Economics, said the administration also is frustrated.

U.S.-China trade and currency disputes are a main source of
the current difficulties and the decline in domestic support
for China, but Bush and Hu also face major security issues.

The Bush administration has criticized China’s military
buildup. In a recently released national-security strategy,
Bush signaled he increasingly sees China as a potential
challenge to U.S. interests.

Other sources of tension include Iran and North Korea’s
nuclear ambitions and Beijing’s energy-driven ties with other
governments at odds with Washington, including Venezuela, Sudan
and Burma.

“The challenge this time is to show the American public
that there’s some productive output from this increasingly
candid and strategic discussion between the two leaders,”
Michael Green, Bush’s former senior Asia adviser, told a Center
for Strategic and International Studies news briefing on
Thursday.

Failure to make progress on economic issues, Bergsten told
the CSIS briefing, “may undermine the overall relationship and
then make it harder to work together on security concerns.”

IRAN AND NORTH KOREA

Iran’s announcement on Tuesday that it enriched nuclear
fuel made its nuclear activities an even more urgent U.S.-China
summit topic. Washington, which suspects Iran is developing
nuclear weapons despite Tehran’s denials, is seeking tougher
action including possible sanctions against Iran in the U.N.
Security Council.

Until now, Beijing has lined up with Russia to thwart
sanctions or other punitive action, U.S. officials say.

“This summit is a good opportunity to make the case why
China should step up and join the U.S. and Europeans” in
pressuring Iran to halt its nuclear program, China expert
Richard Bush of the Brookings Institution said in an interview.

Similarly, the United States would like to see China do
more to persuade North Korea to return to stalled six-country
negotiations on its nuclear program.

But on foreign policy in general — including on human
rights issues and the release of political prisoners — “there
is a sense that the Chinese are not giving on anything,” said
Derek Mitchell, a CSIS Asia expert.

Hu almost certainly will raise the issue of Taiwan, the
self-governed island Beijing insists must be unified with the
mainland through force if necessary. But U.S. officials and
experts said they believe the situation is reasonably stable
now and the summit is unlikely to produce movement.