Nov 16, 5:45 AM EST
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer
KYOTO, Japan (AP) -- Piquing China just days before meetings with
its leaders, President Bush on Wednesday held up the self-governing
island of Taiwan that Beijing claims as its own as a model of
freedom "at all levels" that the communist giant should
emulate.
Bush's speech opening a four-country tour of Asia amounted to a
road map of the coming discussions he was to have on a potential
bird flu outbreak, global trade, North Korea's nuclear ambitions
and other issues at a gathering of Pacific Rim economies in South
Korea.
After meeting here with his closest Asian ally, Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Bush arrived in Busan, South Korea, on
Wednesday night for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit
and a one-on-one meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
The president was traveling to China and Mongolia over the
weekend.
In remarks sure to irritate his Chinese hosts, Bush prodded the
communist nation to grant basic freedoms to its 1.3 billion people
and further open its economy.
"We encourage China to continue down the road of reform and
openness," Bush told an audience that stayed silent until its
polite applause at the end. "By meeting the legitimate demands of
its citizens for freedom and openness, China's leaders can help
their country grow into a modern, prosperous, and confident
nation."
His challenge to Beijing immediately followed lavish praise of
Taiwan.
"By embracing freedom at all levels, Taiwan has delivered
prosperity to its people and created a free and democratic Chinese
society," Bush said. Pointing to Taiwan - as well as South Korea -
Bush said political freedoms are the inevitable product of the kind
of economic liberalization China has begun pursuing.
"Men and women who are allowed to control their own wealth will
eventually insist on controlling their own lives and their own
future," he said. "As China reforms its economy, its leaders are
finding that once the door to freedom is opened even a crack, it
cannot be closed."
Comparing Taiwan and China, even indirectly, raises a major thorn
in U.S.-China relations. China regards the island as its own and
has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares formal independence.
While U.S. policy recognizes only one China - including Taiwan -
and opposes Taiwanese independence, Washington also is Taiwan's
largest arms benefactor and is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to
help Taiwan defend itself if attacked.
Taiwan, which has de facto independence, has resisted Beijing's
rule since the Communists took over the mainland in 1949.
Bush's speech was an attempt to follow through on his inaugural
promise to predicate U.S. relations with all nations on their
treatment of their citizens - a pledge that meets its most
difficult test with strategic allies such as China, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan.
Still, the call for change in China was not as tough as some on
Capitol Hill and among his conservative supporters might want, as
it was accompanied by praise on several fronts.
Bush recognized that economic reforms have resulted in a
better-housed, better-fed populace, and he lauded China's
leadership in the effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons
programs.
But while the president said China should allow people to worship
without state control - a point he hoped to underscore by visiting
an officially recognized church while in Beijing - Bush did not
mention China's human rights record.
This careful dance reflects the diplomatic subtlety required with a
nation that is a vast and growing market for American goods, has
the world's largest standing army and is using its economic might
to assert itself on the world stage.
"The Chinese are not going to like being scolded," Adam Segal, who
studies China at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "But
if they are of the mind to, they can read it with a positive
spin."
Indeed, the response from Beijing was muted.
"Our common points outnumber our differences," said Chinese foreign
minister Li Zhaoxing.
Bush also lectured China about making additional economic reforms
to correct an enormous trade imbalance, better protect the
copyrights of American software and movies, and make greater
progress toward a market-based currency.
Bush did not hold back on North Korea and Myanmar, two Asian
nations that "still have not taken even the first steps toward
freedom." He said the price of their "refusal to open up is
isolation, backwardness, and brutality."
Bush's sleepover in the ancient Japanese capital of Kyoto was a
reward for Koizumi, an unflinching ally who supported the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq by making an unpopular decision to send noncombat
troops there in January 2004.
At a joint news conference Wednesday, Koizumi was noncommittal
about whether he would extend that mission, which expires next
month.
The two leaders glossed over lingering problems, including Tokyo's
two-year-old ban on U.S. beef imports and a recent agreement on
realigning U.S. military forces in the country.
Instead, they focused on friendship. Bush called Koizumi his
"buddy" and gave him a Segway standup motorized scooter as a
gift.
"There is no such thing as U.S.-Japan relationship too close," said
Koizumi.