[PEN-L:6736] Embassy Bombing Fallout

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Missile attack damages military relations

CHINESE outrage at the US bombing of the Belgrade embassy is taking a
toll on one of the most sensitive aspects of US-China relations: an
effort to build closer military co-operation.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that China had cancelled a planned visit to
Beijing next week by the head of the US Marine Corps.

In Washington, the defence attache at the Chinese embassy scrapped a
tour of US military bases. The freeze on military contacts is to last at
least through May, Pentagon officials said.

Defence Secretary William Cohen is tentatively scheduled to visit China
next month, but the trip now appears unlikely. In testimony on Tuesday,
he told a Senate committee he ``had planned to go there'' for talks
already postponed in April because of the bombing campaign.

The fallout from Friday's mistaken bombing is putting the heaviest
strain on US-China military relations since the Taiwan Straits crisis of
March 1996, when Beijing test-fired missiles off the coast of Taiwan and
President Bill Clinton responded by sending two aircraft carriers to the
area. Washington withdrew an invitation for the Chinese defence chief to
visit, and military relations unravelled.

In 1997, the Pentagon began repairing the relationship. Mr Cohen made
his first visit to Beijing in January 1998 and signed an agreement on
``rules of the road'' for naval forces in the Pacific. Even then,
however, US officials saw a lingering reluctance among the Chinese
military, particularly among its older generation,
to establish more open relations with the Pentagon.

``I don't think anyone in the Pentagon _ even before this latest problem
_ was wild-eyed and gushy about what could be accomplished,'' said
Jonathan Pollack, a senior Asia specialist at the Rand Corp think tank.

Before his April visit to China was taken off the agenda, Mr Cohen said
he expected his hosts to reciprocate Pentagon gestures of openness by
granting him access to People's Liberation Army facilities deemed off
limits in previous visits by senior US officials.

The Pentagon also has been frustrated in its efforts to gain China's
co-operation in documenting the fate of US soldiers unaccounted for from
the Korean War. Just last week, President Clinton disclosed that he
raised this problem with Prime Minister Zhu Rongji during his recent
visit to Washington, and Mr Zhu ``indicated that the Chinese should be
able to help''. He made no promises.

China intervened on North Korea's side early in the 1950-53 Korean War
as US troops approached the Yalu River on China's border. In a sign of
long-lasting distrust, a sign carried by Chinese youth protesting
at the US Embassy in Beijing this week read: ``Remember the Korean
War!'' Even before the embassy bombing, however, US-China military ties
were under stress from allegations that China stole US nuclear weapons
secrets and Beijing's anger at American plans to develop a defence
against ballistic missiles, which China sees as a potential trigger to
an Asian arms race.

During a January visit to Washington, Sha Zukang, a senior Chinese arms
control official, warned the administration that pushing ahead with the
missile defence system would end any chance of China's
joining the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international regime
for controlling the technology. - AP