PRESIDENT LI XIANNIAN'S VISIT AND TAIWAN ISSUE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T01058R000201600001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 20, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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Central Intelligence Agency
Washington. D. C.20505
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
20 June 1985
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President Li Xiannian's Visit and the Taiwan Issue
Summary
Recent Chinese behavior leads us to believe that
President Li Xiannian will probably adopt a
nonconfrontational posture regarding US relations with
Taiwan during his visit to Washington. We expect Li to
raise issues involving Taiwan, making China's case for
reducing arms sales and pressing the United States to take a
more direct role in promoting negotiations for the
reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. On balance,
however, Li. will probably emphasize positive aspects of the
relationship rather than seek confrontation
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There is an outside risk that current leadership
tensions in Beijing -- on which we have fragmentary
reporting -- could spill over into Li's visit. Relations
with Moscow and the West have been under discussion in the
This memorandum was prepared b Foreign Affairs
Branch, China Division, Office of East sian Analysis. Questions
and comments are welcome and should be addressed to the Chief,
China Division, OEA 25X1
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leadership, and it is conceivable that a strong demarche on
Taiwan could be made for a Chinese domestic audience. It is
also possible that Li may take a more moderate line with the
President, while another member of the delegation takes a
harder line at a lower level
Li's Objectives
President Li's political agenda in Washington, we believe,
will have been determined largely by Deng Xiaoping. Li has been
a critic of close relations with the United States in the past
and has shown a tendency to try to play the United States against
the USSR. But in recent years -- and especially since becoming
president in 1982 -- he has been an uncontroversial performer
adhering closely to his prepared briefs. Deng has retained
primary responsiblility for foreign affairs, and
remains particularly invo ve in gui ing
relations with the United States and Taiwan. We have no strong
indication that this situation has fundamentally changed despite
evidence of Deng's efforts to reduce his workload gradually and
turn affairs over to his successors.
The Li visit comes at a time when Deng Xiaoping is deeply
immersed in a series of important politicial meetings leading up
to a major party "conference of delegates" in September. The
leadership now appears to be especially sensitive to issues
involving Chinese sovereignty, and the climate is such that even
tangential issues, such as the failed US port call, easily become
politicized. Deng will want to show his opponents that in his
approach to Washington he is pressing for progress on Taiwan's
reunification with the mainland. At the same time, he will want
to avoid new and serious frictions with Washington. The trick
for Deng, in our estimation, will be to prevent his opponents
from finding fault with his policy or Washington's response and
turning it into a political issue
Abroad, we suspect the Chinese are looking for progress in
relations with Washington to ensure that Beijing's ties with the
West appear stronger than those with Moscow. Having made a
series of gestures to the Soviets since late last year signaling
a desire to improve at least the atmospherics of Sino-Soviet
relations, the Chinese -- Deng and the reformers in particular --
have an interest in reassuring their Western friends that Beijing
is not drifting toward Moscow. The recent Chinese failure to
host a visit by US warships makes a compensating display of
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smooth US-Chinese relations all the more important to Deng 125X1
The Chinese also presumably want to demonstrate to the
Soviets that China's policy toward the USSR rests on a solid base
of relations with the United States and the West and is not the
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product of weakness or isolation. This ultimately could give the
Soviets an incentive to be more responsive to China's security
needs 25X1
The Taiwan Issue -- Setting the Tone
Focusing on Taiwan, we judge that Deng will want Li to
establish an overall atmosphere of cooperation and friendliness
with the President within which to make his case for US
assistance on reunification with Taiwan. The most recent Chinese
pronouncements on Taiwan and relations with Washington have been
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman issued an obviously
prepared statement reiterating Beijing's standard view that "a
peaceful reunification of the country is our consistent policy"
shortly after Hu Yaobang used immoderate language on the possible
use of force against Taiwan. Similarly, an article in the PRC-
controlled Ta Kung Pao newspaper in Hong Kong, published shortly
after Hu's remarks were pr' e, attempted to pour oil on
the waters Hu had stirred 25X1
More recently, China's Ambassador to the United States, Han
Xu, told a Hong Kong interviewer of China's hope that peaceful
negotiations will lead to a solution of the Taiwan issue and that
the "US will not hamper this process." Han also attempted to
limit the damage of the failure of the US warships' visit, saying
that the problems regarding the visit are "the subject of
negotiations, and the affair" should not have an impact on Sino-
objections to those policies
Finally, a constructive note was struck in a major Beijing
Review article on 17 June, analyzing the Reagan Administration's
diplomacy as background for Li's visit. The article explicitly
praised the President's "successively removing obstacles thrown
up by pro-Taiwan forces," signing of the 17 August 1982
communique on arms sales to Taiwan, loosening of restrictions on
technology transfer, and said his trip to China was "helpful."
The article noted critically that both Democrats and Republicans
support a policy of "one China, one Taiwan," and cited US
failures in the Middle East. Surprisingly, however, the article
gave the Administration credit for successes-against the USSR in
Central America and South Africa, despite previous Chinese
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scene, an eventuality Deng told Edward Heath in April is a
"matter of urgency." Beijing has been spreading the view that
after Chiang goes disorder could occur on Taiwan or native
Taiwanese could try to assert Taiwan's independence from China.
future of Taiwan after President Chiang Ching-kuo leaves the
Delivering the Message
Beneath the superficial amity, the essential private message
regarding Taiwan the Chinese wish to deliver will have some steel
in it. Deng and a host of Chinese foreign affairs officials have
repeated in conversations with Westerners their concern about the
Deng and the others have sought to underline the importance
of the potential for disorder by asking rhetorically what the
United States would do if China finds the situation on Taiwan
requires a naval blockade of the island. In each instance, they
have avoided making explicit ulitmatums and sought to present
their case in hypothetical terms, while injectin an air of
foreboding and danger about the future of Taiwan.
Whether the Chinese really believe such a scenario will 25X1
develop, we suspect they are raising the question primarily to
move the United States toward engaging itself in the issue of
Taiwan's reunificiation. Last December, Deng asked Prime
Minister Thatcher to carry a message to the President urging
Washington to encourage Taiwan's leadership to talk with the
Communists. Zhang Pin, son of China's defense minister, told a
US Embassy attache at that time that Deng would like the
President to take advantage of the good will he has built in
Taipei to bring about a negotiated solution that will be in
Subsequent Chinese conversations with US officials have
focused on China's desire for the United States to express
support for Deng's notion of "one country, two systems." Deng
evidently wants to take advantage of the momentum this formula
acquired after successful negotiations with London over the
future of Hong Kong, a point reinforced when Deng chose to send 25X1
his message regarding Taiwan through Prime Minister Thatcher.
do no harm to US political or economic interests on Taiwan
Deng later told Heath that a solution under this language would
President Li probably will put these views on record again
during his meetings in Washington. He may also raise the
possibility of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan as an outcome Beijing
wants to avoid, arguing that to do so requires a direct US role
in promoting negotiations for the reunification of Taiwan. We
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successful visit
judge that the Chinese are not ready to increase pressure on
Washington on this point, however, because of Deng's desire for a
The Chinese will also be prepared to reassert their
interpretation of the limits on US arms sales to Taiwan and to
urge that the amounts sold be reduced faster. Li probably will
seek a restatement of the US commitment to the 17 August 1982
commuinque.
An Outside Risk
There is a chance that current leadership tensions in
Beijing will spill over into Li's visit. The high stakes in the
party's deliberations over the apportionment of power and the
direction of ref
opponents seizin
political gain.
orm make it impossible to rule out Deng's
g on the US relationship or the Taiwan issue f
or
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Hu Yaobang's remarks on e
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visit by the w
sovereignty to
acceptable to
arships apparently raised the issue of China's
a political level where the only outcome
qonservatives in the leadership was cancellation o
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planned economy with increased interaction with the USSR?
far from the surface: Should China continue to pursue its
opening to the West or should it reiterate a commitment tqa
The foreign policy implications o the issues, however, are no
In this area, Hu Yaobang remains somewhat of a wild card.
We are uncertain what his precise goals might be, but the recent
experience of his involvement with scuttling the ships visit and
using immoderate language regarding the use of force against
1 The delegation presumably will also present China's case
concerning a full range of other issues unrelated to Taiwan,
including the US cutoff of funds for UN-sponsored family planning
programs in China, access to technology, textiles, shipping and
the like. In general, we expect Li's conversations in Washington
to be more substantial than his meeting with President Reagan
last year, where Li was not the principal interlocutor, but still
without the dynamism and breadth of Deng's conversations. Some
issues may be left to Vice Premier Li Peng or State Councilor Ji
Pengfei to present, permitting Li to concentrate on major
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Taiwan compels us to consider the possibility that he might be
playing to a conservative gallery in the leadership. If he is
out of synch with Deng or Premier Zhao Ziyang and seeking to win
political support from skeptics of the US relationship, then he
may inject himself again into the foreign policy arena before
Li's arrival in Washington.
In any event, the chances of a more confrontational visit by
Li, or even cancellation of his trip, would increase sharply if
the Chinese perceive the United States is violating its
commitment to a "one China" policy or agreements on arms sales to
Taiwan. This would be true especially if the issue emerged in a
fashion that left the Chinese no choice but to react publicly.
Under the circumstances, Deng could revert to his behavior during
the 1981-82 dispute with Washington over arms sales, when he
attempted to outmaneuver his critics by taking a very tough
position on Taiwan.
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SUBJECT: President Li Xiannian's Visit and the Taiwan Issue
Distri
1
bution:
- Honorable Michael Armacost, Under Secretary for
1 -
1 -
1 -
Political Affairs, Room 7240, Department of State
Honorable Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, Room 4318, Department of
State -
John Chain, National Security Council, Room 302., OEOB
Gaston Sigur, National Security Council, Room 302, OEOB
Donald Anderson, Director, Office of Chinese Affairs,
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Room 4318,
Department of State
James Kelly, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, Room 4E-817, Pentagon
Mark Pratt, Director, EA/RA/Taiwan Coordination, Room
4312, Department of State
David Laux, National Security
Executive Director (7E12)
DDI (7E44)
NIO/EA (7E62)
C/EA/RR (5D10)
C/PES (7F24)
PDB Staff (7F30)
CPAS/ILS (7G50)
CPAS/IMC/CB (7G07)
D/OEA (4F18)
Research Director/OEA (4G32)
C/China
C/China
C/China
C/China
C/China
OCR/ISG
C/EA
1 - FBIS/N
1 - C/DO/P
DDI/OEA/CH/FO
Division (4G32)
Division/FOR (4G32)
Division/DOM (4G32)
Division/DEV (4G32)
Division/DEF (4G32)
UH19)
(5D38
EAD/CE
PS 3D1
Council, Room
(20 J
une 1985)
302,
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