BEIJING China capped its jubilant reception of the chairman of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party, Lien Chan, with praise for him on Tuesday and an offer of two rare giant pandas as gifts to Taiwan as he prepared to return to Taipei.
But even as Lien was leaving, Chinese officials cooled hopes of a similar meeting with Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, by placing conditions on such a session that observers said Chen's governing Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, is likely to find unacceptable.
The pandas - a seemingly unrefusable sentimental gift that China has previously reserved for heads of state on crucial visits - were "a symbol of peace and unity" between the two sides, Wang Zaixi, the deputy head of the Chinese Communist Party's Taiwan Work Office, said at a news briefing. Lien's visit was "a complete success," he said, calling it a "landmark event" in relations between China and Taiwan.
Lien's departure from Shanghai was the climactic flourish of what Chinese analysts have called China's "soft offensive" to win over Taiwanese public opinion. China hopes to use Lien's eight-day tour, along with an eight-day visit by another Taiwanese opposition leader, James Soong, starting on Thursday, to regain the initiative in cross-strait relations after years of largely fruitless verbal jousting, said Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at the People's University in Beijing.
"The mainland's soft offensive has been quite effective," said Shi. "It may force Chen to take action, even action the DPP is unwilling to take."
Indeed, Chen offered Monday to hold talks with Beijing, apparently responding to the tide of public opinion and international pressure evoked by Lien's meeting with China's president, Hu Jintao, last Friday, and also said he would ask Soong to take a "secret message" to Beijing. On Tuesday, Chen also invited Hu to visit Taiwan.
Wang said China would consider a visit from the Democratic Progressive Party but that it would first have to meet several conditions, including abandoning the party's constitution and officially "accepting" that Taiwan is a part of China. Chen, who rose to power as a pro-independence activist and has been skeptical of recent peaceful overtures from Beijing, is unlikely to embrace those conditions.
"So long as the DPP recognizes the 1992 consensus, gives up its Taiwan independence party constitution and stops its separatist activities aimed at Taiwan independence, we would welcome its visit to the mainland," Wang said. The 1992 consensus is China's shorthand for an opaque formula China and Taiwan agreed on that year as the basis for talks held in Singapore in 1993. It refers to both sides' accepting "one China," but allows each to have its own "interpretation" of what that means.
The Democratic Progressive Party does not accept the very idea of a 1992 consensus and refuses to accept it as the basis for talks, Cheng Wen-tsan, a spokesman for the party, said in response to Wang's remarks. "We can't recognize something that doesn't exist," he said in a telephone interview from Taipei, adding that the "consensus" masks basic "misconceptions" about Taiwan's status.
"The 'one-China' principle negates Taiwan's sovereignty and denies the legitimacy of the Republic of China," he said, referring to the official name for Taiwan's government. Chen has said the "one China" claim can be a "topic for discussion between the two sides, but not a precondition for those discussions," Zheng said. "China's demands are just unreasonable."
But while Lien's tour and the prospect of giant pandas in a Taipei zoo seem likely to stir ripples in Taiwanese public opinion, the latest comments from Beijing suggest there is little hope of the Chinese and Taiwanese governments' talking over their fundamental disagreements soon, analysts said.
"It's nearly impossible for Chen Shui-bian and the DPP to accept the '92 consensus," said Pan Hsi-tang, an expert on China-Taiwan relations at Tamkang University in Taipei. "If Chen and the Taiwan government were to accept it, the DPP's supporters would denounce Chen as a traitor to Taiwan."
Chen may ask Soong to explore the possibility of a vaguer formula that built on the two sides' previous positions, said Pan. But the mainland is unlikely to accept any further vagueness, making breaking the stalemate very difficult.
China has used Lien's visit, and its accompanying promises of economic and political rewards to the Nationalist Party for supporting reconciliation with China, to more directly influence Taiwan's electoral politics, especially in the lead-up to Taiwan's May 14 vote for a Legislative Assembly that will consider changing its Constitution, said analysts.
"Taiwanese politics is very complex, and this strategy carries some risks," said Shi, the Beijing-based analyst, "but at least for the time being the opposition parties are looking stronger, and this successful visit will give them a boost."
But China's partisan strategy risks making its Taiwan policy a hostage to Taiwan's unpredictable electoral politics, some politicians said.
Lien's visit has also served to highlight how Hu dominates his government's policy towards Taiwan. Until recently, Hu has avoided specific comments about Taiwan, but when Lien and 30 Nationalist officials entered the Great Hall of the People - China's Parliament building - they were greeted not by the full complement of China's central leadership but by Hu alone.
"Without a doubt, the Chinese government wanted to show that Hu Jintao, and only Hu Jintao, is the final decision-maker of China's Taiwan policy," said Shi.
OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA (AP) — In a delicate ballet 25,000 feet above the open sea, four Japanese F-15s pull up to a U.S. Air Force tanker, the insignia of the rising sun shining from their wings. One by one, they maneuver into range of the tanker's refueling boom, hold their position, then dip their wings and vanish.
Japanese jet takes part in refueling training with U.S. tanker.
By Itsuo Inouye, AP
American military planners say it's the look of the future — a deeply interwoven relationship with a credible Japanese ally ready to deploy overseas and share the burden of keeping the peace in a volatile region.
To the American crew, the mock refueling is just another day's work.
"The skill level is the same, the planes are the same," said boom operator Mike Webster, of Greenfield, Mass. "It's basically just like working with our own people." The only difference, he says, is the language, but both sides manage with English.
In Washington, it's called "interoperability" and it's a top military priority. With its own forces engaged in Iraq and elsewhere, the United States needs to strengthen its alliances and draw on its friends for whatever support it can get. And since the end of World War II, Japan has been Washington's best friend in Asia.
But the idea of a beefed-up Japanese military doesn't resonate well through the region.
As the two-week refueling exercise was being carried out late last month, relations between Japan and neighboring China were plunging to their lowest point in years, largely over Japanese wartime aggression that left millions of Chinese dead, and over Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
There is no consensus in Japan, either.
Negotiations on a broad reworking of the military alliance with Washington are reportedly bogging down because the government is divided over just how far Japan should follow Washington's call.
The bigger question is whether Japan should even be a military power.
The U.S.-led occupation forces disbanded Japan's military after World War II and helped write a constitution that barred Japan from using "the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes."
Washington soon realized it needed to build an ally to counter communism in Asia, and Japan passed a law in 1954 that paved the way for establishing its Self-Defense Forces. Though the decision was denounced by many who saw it as unconstitutional, the government argued that the military force is legal because is a strictly defense-oriented.
That argument is becoming hard to sustain.
Japan has more than 240,000 active-duty troops and an annual defense budget bigger than Britain's. Its air force has more than 160 F-15s and its spy satellites keep watch on North Korea.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who advocates a constitutional change to free up the military, has pushed the envelope even further, sending hundreds of soldiers to southern Iraq for humanitarian activities and more to Southeast Asia to provide tsunami relief.
"Japan is America's only reliable partner in Asia, and Washington wants Japan to make a big contribution in its efforts in the region," said Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international relations at Tokyo's Waseda University.
Yamamoto said Tokyo, for its part, wants to bolster its troops largely because of the perceived threat from China and regional wild card North Korea, which is developing nuclear weapons and has missiles that can deliver them to Japan.
This week the Japanese Defense Agency said its fighter jets scrambled 13 times last year in response to Chinese military aircraft approaching their airspace, up from only twice in 2003. And on Sunday North Korea apparently test-fired another missile into the Sea of Japan. However, Japanese and South Korean officials said it was a small missile unrelated to anything nuclear.
Yamamoto said the political constraints on Japan's military posture have eased. "Collective security used to be seen as unconstitutional. But it seems the Japanese government believes it need only reinterpret — not change — the constitution to justify its policy shifts."
Two areas have long been taboo — the development of nuclear weapons, and the acquisition of aircraft carriers or other means of projecting power overseas.
The nuclear ban, driven by memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, remains firm.
But the Defense Agency announced plans in 2001 to buy a 13,000-ton destroyer with a flight deck for anti-submarine helicopter operations. Opponents called it a mini-aircraft carrier.
The day when Japan refuels American F-15s, meanwhile, may not be far away. In two years, Japan's first tanker, a Boeing 767, will be delivered to a military airfield in the central Japanese city of Nagoya.
"We want them to be able to do pretty much whatever we can do," said Lt. Col. Chris Comeau, commander of the 909th Airborne Refueling Squadron at Kadena Air Base on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, where the American tankers are based. "They want to be bigger and better, and we want to help them. Wouldn't it be cool one day to have Japanese tankers refueling American F-15s?"
Capt. Shinya Akiyoshi, a test pilot who is among several candidates to be on the Japanese tanker's first crew, said it will serve two important goals — to keep Japanese fighters in the air longer and therefore more rapidly responsive to intruders, and to cut down on noisy, potentially dangerous landings and takeoffs in densely populated areas.
Akiyoshi, who participated in the refueling training, noted fears the tanker could also be used to extend the striking range of Japanese fighters. But he said that shouldn't stop Japan from doing what it feels it needs to do.
"Our neighbors are sensitive," he acknowledged. "But we have to keep telling them that this is about our national defense. We don't intend to use our fighters for any other purpose."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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