July 16, 1999
Web posted at: 4:13 a.m. EDT (0813 GMT)

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From staff and wire reports

BEIJING -- China let a glimmer of flexibility shine through its mounting threats to Taiwan on Friday, with a Beijing official calling on Taipei to clarify its redefinition of relations as "state-to-state" ties.

Since Monday, when Taiwan formally abandoned the "One China" policy under which both agreed they were part of the same country and sought reconciliation, Beijing has been in a rage.

It repeated a threat to invade if Taiwan declared independence and on Thursday, with what appeared to be carefully calculated timing, announced it could make the neutron bomb, which kills people but leaves property relatively intact.

But on Friday, there were no vitriolic commentaries in state newspapers and the China Daily seemed to offer a way out of the latest row across the Taiwan Strait.

It quoted a senior adviser to the Beijing body that deals with Taiwan affairs as saying a pivotal October visit to Taipei by the group's head would be "impossible" unless Taiwan explained its contentious policy shift.

Zhang Kehui, adviser to the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, called for an explanation from the group's Taiwan counterpart to pave the way for a visit to the island by ARATS Chairman Wang Daohan.

"We think that the time will not be ripe for Wang to visit Taiwan until Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Koo Chen-foo clarifies the definition of cross-straits talks as 'bilateral talks between two states'," Zhang was quoted as saying.

The remarks by Zhang, a prominent defector from Taiwan, were made at a seminar called by the government to condemn Taipei's policy at which another policymaker vilified President Lee Teng-hui as Taiwan's "biggest troublemaker"

But his statement was Beijing's first public hint that it might take up Taipei's offer to explain a policy change that has vexed complex triangular ties between Taiwan, China and the United States.

Wang, scheduled to reciprocate Koo's visit to the mainland last year, said on Monday as the storm broke that Taipei's scrapping of its "One China" policy had removed the foundation of cross-strait ties and cast his trip in doubt.

Taiwan said on Tuesday it would make every effort to explain its posture to Beijing, but the Communist authorities had shown no signs of a willingness to listen until Zhang's remarks were published on Friday.

Taipei tripped the latest cross-straits crisis by declaring it was abandoning the "One China" policy -- the foundation of Taipei-Beijing relations for decades.

It said the idea of one, indivisible China that included Taiwan -- a formula that has prevented war -- had to be scrapped as Beijing was using it to undermine the legitimacy of Taiwan.

China responded with predictable rage and days of vitriolic attacks on Lee Teng-hui, who first publicized the policy shift in an interview with German media last weekend.

On Thursday, the Liberation Army Daily military newspaper renewed China's threat to retake the Nationalist-ruled island by force if it declared independence and called Lee "a criminal of the nation who will leave a stink for a thousand years."

Beijing raised the threat threshhold with a nearly simultaneous announcement that it had neutron bomb technology. The revelation was aimed at rebutting U.S. allegations of Chinese nuclear spying, but few saw the timing as accidental.

A military source told CNN that the military preparedness level of troops in southern China had been upgraded from level 3 to level 2.

While the move is not considered to represent a state of war, the source said the upgrade was meant to put pressure on Taiwan. It means that troops in the region can't take vacation, that the number of scheduled patrols and drills have increased, and that vehicles, planes and ships are armed during drills and practice routines.

But rather than reverse itself in the face of Beijing's mounting threats, Taiwan ordered state agencies on Thursday to sell its move to China and the world.

The United States has urged both sides to do nothing to jeopardize talks between Beijing and Taipei envoys and told China it would not tolerate a violent solution to the Taiwan issue.

"We would ... consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means as a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States," said State Department spokesman James Rubin.

Taiwan has been estranged from the mainland since the Nationalists lost a civil war to the Communists and fled to the island in 1949. Beijing has since pressed other countries not to extend diplomatic ties to Taiwan's Republic of China.

Taiwan officially agrees on reunification, but says Beijing must embrace democracy first.

Beijing Bureau Chief Rebecca MacKinnon and Reuters contributed to this report.

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