CHINA'S VIEW OF RELATIONS WITH THE NEW US ADMINISTRATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP03T02547R000100180001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 1, 1981
• Content Type: REPORT

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National Secret
Foreign
Assessment
Center
China's View of Relations
With the New US Administration
State Dept. review completed
Secret
PA 81-10227
June 1981
Copy 14 2
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National
Foreign.
Assessment
Center
China's View of Relations
With the New US Administration
Information available as of 2 June 1981
has been used in the preparation of this report
Branch, OPA,
The author of this paper isl Office
of Political Analysis. Comments and queries are
welcome and should be directed to the Chief, China
Intelligence Officer for East Asia
This report was coordinated with the Acting National
Secret
PA 81-10227
June 198/
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China's View of Relations
With the New US Administration 25X1
Key Judgments Beijing has tentatively concluded that Sino-US relations can continue to
improve under the new US administration. At the same time, China remains
concerned that Washington will take Beijing for.granted and will not respect
Chinese sensitivities and interests regarding Taiwan. Ferment in Chinese
domestic affairs has aggravated differences with the United States over
Taiwan.
Recent US actions have reassured Beijing about the stability of the relation-
ship and its potential for further growth. This has taken place despite
China's continued uneasiness over the prospect of US arms sales to Taiwan
and persistent dissatisfaction with the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act.
China has been particularly encouraged by US statements reaffirming the
bases of normalization, by Ambassador Chai's meetings with the President
and Secretary Haig, and by the visit to China of former President Ford and
the scheduled visit by Secretary Haig.
Beijing continues to insist that the basis for a firm and comprehensive Sino-
US relationship is agreement on the need to oppose Soviet aggression. China
looks to the United States to formulate its policies in light of this imperative
and questions US constancy in opposing Soviet actions when Washington
responds to other needs and pressures, particularly on the Taiwan question.
Chinese leaders have made a point of assuring the United States that they
will maintain a strongly anti-Soviet stance and have encouraged the United
States to play a more active role in Indochina and South Asia-areas of
major Chinese interest in opposing Soviet positions.
Beijing still expects relations with the United States to expand in the
security and economic as well as the diplomatic areas. Despite economic
retrenchment in China, trade is flourishing, and Beijing continues to express
an interest in obtaining US military equipment and technology. China's
continued emphasis on the strategic underpinning of Sino-US ties indicates
a desire to give an ever broader political basis to the relationship. While
hoping to expand its connections with the United States, Beijing will
continue to press the United States not to give an official character to its ties
with Taiwan, and particularly not to sell new arms to Taipei.
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China's View of Relations
With the New US Administration
Beijing's Assessment
Chinese assessments of the incoming US administra-
tion at the end of last year indicated confidence that
US policy toward China would not change substan-
tially and a belief that the United States would be
more steadfast in opposing Soviet expansionism. At the
same time, Chinese public and private statements
showed a deep concern that the United States might
regard China as a negligible factor in international
affairs and thus conclude that it could ignore Chinese
interests. The Chinese were most sensitive to the pos-
sibility that the United States might consider that its
strong anti-Soviet stance would be sufficiently
attractive to cause China to look the other way while
Washington improved its ties with Taiwan. Beijing has
thus been intent on warning that the Taiwan question
cannot be isolated from the context of Sino-US rela-
tions and that any such attempt was tantamount to a
"two-Chinas" policy
These fears led Beijing to speak forcefully and openly
in the winter of 1980-81 on what it called the disas-
trous consequences to bilateral relations if the United
States moved to upgrade relations with Taiwan. Two
concerns were uppermost in Chinese minds: that the
new US administration would give an official char-
acter to its relations with Taiwan and that it would
quickly sell arms to Taiwan. After the election, Beijing
increased its warnings about the unfavorable con-
sequences of both of these steps. Confident that the
new administration would want to preserve the strate-
gic benefits it derived from the Sino-US relationship,
the Chinese attempted to appeal to what they took to
be the administration's recognition of its need for good
relations with China]
US visitors to Beijing during the transition period were
told by Chinese leaders that efforts to upgrade rela-
tions with Taiwan could be "dangerous" and could
"worsen" US-Chinese relations. A Chinese newspaper
warned that any change in the character of US rela-
tions with Taiwan would "definitely lead to a ret-
rogression" in Sino-US relations.
The extent of Chinese sensitivities and concern over
the new administration's policy toward Taiwan was
demonstrated by the extraordinary attention devoted
to the question of possible attendance by Taiwan of-
ficials at President Reagan's inauguration. Vice For-
eign Minister Zhang Wenjin told former Ambassador
Woodcock on 17 January that the invitations were
viewed as "a serious affair" in Beijing. Both the Chi-
nese and the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong press
waged a vigorous campaign on this issue in the days
before the inauguration, imputing major significance
to the subject until the issue was worked out to 25X1
Beijing's satisfaction. More recently, Beijing has
reacted with sharp public commentary to statements
by US administration officials that it believes imply
the existence of an official relationship between the
United States and Taiwan
Arms Sales to Taiwan 25X1
The major Chinese concern is with the nature and
scope of future US arms sales to Taiwan. This concern
imparted additional urgency to Beijing's efforts begin-
ning in November to forestall a $500 million sale to
Taiwan by the Netherlands that included two subma-
rines to be built by the Dutch and nuclear power plant
equipment. Beijing exerted progressively greater pres-
sure on the Netherlands in an effort to block the sale of
the submarines, moving from a "strong protest" to
threats of political retaliation, economic sanctions, and
the reduction of diplomatic relations to the charge 25X1
level. When on 20 February the Dutch Government
confirmed its decision to sell the submarines, the Chi-
own envoy from The Hague
nese requested that the Netherlands remove its
Ambassador from Beijing and formally recalled their
The Chinese reaction to the Dutch sale was clearly
intended as a warning to the United States. As one
Chinese official put it, "the whole point of our forceful
protest to the Dutch" is to dissuade the United States
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from selling arms to Taiwan. From the outset, Chinese
commentary linked Dutch willingness to proceed with
the sale of the submarines to emergence of an "adverse
current" in the West favoring a "two Chinas" or a
"one China, one Taiwan" approach. Beijing appears
convinced that this trend developed in part because
pro-Taiwan forces had regained influence in the
United States with the new administration.
The Chinese assert and almost certainly believe that
statements by members of the new US administration
have fed Taiwan's intransigence, thus damaging pros-
pects for peaceful reunification. A major theme during
the visit to the United States in March of Ji Chaozhu,
Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry's American
and Oceanian Department, was Beijing's commitment
to peaceful reunification with Taiwan; Beijing has
repeatedly emphasized that US arms shipments to
Taiwan impede this process by encouraging Taipei to
reject overtures for a peaceful accommodation.
Ji, whose statements had a self-serving element, ar;
gued that the longer the United States desists from
providing new weapons to Taipei, the more China will
be able to demonstrate its peaceful intentions toward
Taiwan. He has also asked that arms sales to Taiwan
be delayed a year. These and other Chinese statements
indicate Beijing realizes that the United States will
make further arms sales to Taiwan, while implying
that Chinese opposition to subsequent arms sales
would be less damaging as Sino-US relations become
further stabilized.
Domestic Implications
To reinforce Beijing's expressions of concern over the
Taiwan question, several Chinese officials have
pointed to potentially unfavorable consequences in
Chinese domestic politics of any change in US policy
toward Taiwan. This point, which was made by Han
Xu during a visit to the United States in November
and repeated by other Chinese to Americans, was
intended to prompt the United States to reconsider
steps that could undermine the position of Deng
Xiaoping, the leader most directly associated with
Sino-US normalization. Ji Chaozhu stated during his
trip to the United States in March that his government
was under great pressure from the Chinese people on
this issue, and a functionary of the New China News
Agency in Hong Kong remarked in mid-January that
no Chinese leadership "could afford" to acquiesce in
steps that made the Taiwan leaders less willing to
accept peaceful reunification.
These statements result from a concern in Beijing that
US policy toward Taiwan could undermine the basis
for normalization by failing both to respect Chinese
nationalistic sensitivities and to subordinate policy dif-
ferences to the strategic imperative of joint opposition
to the Soviets. While probably not in itself fatal to
Deng, a shift in US policy toward Taiwan could add to
Deng's accumulated problems at a time when his poli-
cies have been under pressure across a broad front.
Any US moves to give an official character to relations
or to undertake a major arms sales to Taiwan would
leave Deng vulnerable to the charge that he personally
miscalculated during the normalization negotiations or
that this policy could not survive a change in US
administration. Deng appears to have made adjust-
ments to cope with criticism in the past, and he would
certainly attempt to make corresponding adjustments
to Sino-US relations in the event of improvements in
US relations with Taiwan.
25X1
Meeting the Soviet Threat
The question of US relations with Taiwan is important
to China both intrinsically and as an indication of US
willingness to subordinate these relations to the strate-
gic interests underlying the Sino-US relationship. For
example, Beijing drew confidence from the US re- 25X1
sponse to the invasion of Afghanistan, but it claims to
remain skeptical of US reliability in jointly facing
Moscow as long as Washington is willing to endanger
its relations with Beijing by continuing to weigh closer
ties to Taiwan. Beijing has repeatedly urged the
United States to show determination in opposing Mos-
cow and has voiced some puzzlement and concern over
the implications of the removal of the partial grain
embargo on the USSR. Implicit in China's position is
the concern that similar political pressures might result
in shifts in US policy on Taiwan.
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This case was stated most baldly by a Chinese news-
paper in late January when it asked, "In opposing
Soviet hegemonism and expansionism and upholding
world peace today, is it possible to go without China?"
Similarly, Foreign Minister Huang Hua told Ambas-
sador Woodcock during his farewell call on 11 Feb-
ruary that the benefits of the Sino-US relationship
should be "viewed in the context of the overall world
situation"-a Chinese euphemism for Soviet aggres-
siveness.
In conveying this message the Chinese have also of-
fered support for a number of US initiatives and have
encouraged Washington to continue to take a firm line
with the USSR. Chinese propaganda has reported
favorably on projected increases in US defense spend-
ing and on more assertive moves by the United States
to counter the USSR and its proxies in various regions.
Beijing has advised the United States to delay respond-
ing to Brezhnev's suggestion for a summit, and Chi-
nese propaganda has sought to induce the West Eu-
ropeans to work out differences with the United States
on the enhanced radiation warhead, urging them to
"see through the designs" of the USSR in opposing
deployment of this weapon. Beijing also welcomed the
visit of Japanese Premier Suzuki to the United States
and the meeting of the NATO Foreign Ministers as
evidence of greater Western cohesion in the face of the
Soviet threat.
Beijing has sought in a number of ways to demonstrate
the firmness and constancy of its opposition to the
Soviet Union in order to encourage the United States
and the other Western powers to maintain a strong
anti-Soviet stance. Huang Hua, for instance, assured
Ambassador Woodcock that China will not play the
"Soviet card," and Ambassador Chai told Under Sec-
retary Stoessel in late March that China had rebuffed
a Soviet offer to open negotiations. Similarly, China
has dismissed as "plain hypocrisy" Brezhnev's pro-
posal to the recent Soviet party congress to discuss
confidence-building measures in the Far East.
Policy in South and Southeast Asia
China has been particularly active in promoting US
support for a coalition of resistance forces in
Kampuchea. Realizing that Pol Pot's unsavory reputa-
tion is a political liability and fearing that international
acceptance of Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea is
weakening, Beijing has become more active since last
December in working behind the scenes to widen the
anti-Vietnamese political base in Kampuchea through
the establishment of a coalition that includes non-
Communist forces as well as Prince Sihanouk. In mid-
February the Chinese Foreign Ministry formally 25X1
called for US support for a united front and for in-
creased economic and military aid to Kampuchean
forces opposing Vietnam. This approach has been reit-
erated by high-ranking Chinese diplomats and, most
recently, by Huang Hua to former President Ford
during his visit in late March. 25X1
Beijing has made similar approaches to Australia, the
ASEAN ' countries, and Japan, wishing to ease the
diplomatic problems created for it by its close associ-
ation with Democratic Kampuchea. China probably
assumes that an active US role, moreover, would make
the united front a more viable and attractive force,
would complicate the situation for Vietnam (and its
Soviet patron), would ease ASEAN's concern over
Chinese intentions in Southeast Asia, and would ease
Beijing's problems of enlisting greater ASEAN and
Australian support for opposition to Vietnam in 25X1
Kampuchea. Beijing recently has urged the United
States to maintain an unyielding, long-term effort to
roll back the Vietnamese gains in Indochina and not
be diverted from this effort by crises in other areas.
25X1
The Chinese have coupled the issues of Afghanistan
and Kampuchea to stress the importance of a firm
stance against aggression. In this connection, Beijing
has been attempting to induce the United States to
expand its aid to Pakistan, particularly since the inva-
sion of Afghanistan. In recent months Huang Hua has
told the Australian Foreign Minister that Western aid
to Pakistan is "far from enough," and Ji Chaozhu
stated during his US visit that it is "necessary to do
more to help the Pakistanis," a point made again by
Huang Hua to former President Ford. At the same 25X1
' ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, consists of
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. F
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time, however, it is unclear what, if anything, Beijing
will be willing to do to facilitate cooperation between
the United States and Pakistan. Up to now, the Chi-
nese have explained their reluctance to be involved by
maintaining that the security aspects of Sino-Pakistani
relations are a strictly bilateral matter.
Beijing's Concerns
Although pleased with the evolution of US policy,
Beijing continues to be concerned that the United
States will view Sino-US relations as a "card" to be
played against Moscow. This concern has been clear in
statements such as that attributed to Deng in January
that the United States must recognize that relations
with China are in its vital interests. This statement has
been repeated by other Chinese, who emphasize that a
stable, long-term relationship can develop only on the
basis of an acknowledgment by the United States of its
F16/79 or the F5G versions of the aircraft. In answer
to a question on how China would react, a senior
Foreign Ministry official said in late February:
"Watch how we handle the Dutch." Beijing probably
hopes to deter the United States from selling the FX to
Taiwan by such ambiguity, which suggests but does
not directly threaten serious consequences to relations.
The Chinese desire that US arms sales to Taiwan be
postponed is based on the hope that the domestic
situation in China will be stabilized soon and that Sino-
US relations will broaden substantially. Although
Beijing would react strongly to the provision of any
advanced weapons to Taiwan, its reaction would be less
damaging to Sino-US relations if these relations had in
the meantime progressed significantly beyond their
current status
need for close ties with Beijing.
In recent months Beijing has repeatedly condemned
the Taiwan Relations Act, underscoring its continuing
concern that the United States will attempt to use this
legislation to give an official character to its contacts
with Taipei. During the visit to Beijing of former
President Ford in late March, Huang Hua identified
Taiwan as the "biggest obstacle" to improved Sino-US
relations and reiterated China's contention that the
Taiwan Relations Act is incompatible with the joint
communique of December 1978 establishing relations
between the United States and China. The Chinese
press continues to argue this line frequently, and re-
cently characterized the Act as an "obstacle" to im-
proved Sino-US relations-a step short of demanding
that the administration rescind the legislation. China is
determined to continue to register its disapproval of
US administration statements affirming adherence to
the Taiwan Relations Act. Beijing also will continue to
press the United States not to use this legislation to
expand its contacts with Taiwan.
One of Beijing's major preoccupations over the next
few months will continue to be with the question of US
arms sales to Taiwan; the possible sale of the FX
aircraft will be a particularly sensitive issue. While
showing great concern on this question, China has not
indicated how it would respond to the sale of either the
Emerging Outlines
While working to assure itself that the United States
will continue to pursue a policy consistent with the
terms of the communique announcing the establish-
ment of relations, Beijing is also attempting to give
greater substance to bilateral relations. Huang Hua
told Ambassador Woodcock during the US envoy's
farewell call that it will be important throughout the
1980s to deepen understanding and "to intensify mu-
tual consultations" between China and the United
States. This message was spelled out in detail by Ji
Chaozhu during his visit to the United States in
March, when he stressed the need for high-level con-
sultations, stated that there is more room for progress
in relations, and said that China hoped that profes-
sional military exchanges with the United States will
continue
Chinese invitations to President Reagan, Secretary
Haig, and Under Secretary Stoessel are intended to
serve this purpose by engaging the United States in
consultations on major bilateral issues. Beijing hopes
to make a firm connection in the minds of US leaders
between the necessity for joint opposition to Soviet
activities and the need for Washington to respect Chi-
nese views on the Taiwan question. Beijing will use the
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high-level consultations it hopes to conduct in coming
months to delay and reduce as much as possible new
US moves toward Taiwan, particularly in the area of
arms sales.
Recent Chinese statements, moreover, suggest that
Beijing may directly and explicitly attempt to tie fu-
ture development of relations to US action on Taiwan.
China almost certainly will not attempt to give the
relationship with the United States a more formal
character but will seek to deepen US commitments
both within the bilateral framework and in support of
Chinese positions in those areas, notably Indochina
and South Asia, where the Soviet threat is most di-
rectly felt. It will also work to establish closer economic
and security ties as part of its effort to give greater
substance to the overall political relationhip and to give
the United States greater incentive not to expand its
contacts with Taiwan.
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