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Allies Seek Peace, Stability in East Asia
55 minutes ago White House - AP Cabinet & State
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON - Shared concern about China and its threat to use force against Taiwan are drawing Japan and the United States closer in their determination to maintain peace and stability in East Asia.
While the Bush administration says it supports China's emergence as an economic power in the region and the world, the overriding U.S. message to Beijing is, as State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday: "Play by the rules."
Increasingly, Japan is growing bolder in publicly seconding that view.
During talks Saturday in Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono are expected to make strong statements in support of ensuring security in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula.
They also were expected to renew demands that North Korea (news - web sites) halt development of nuclear weapons while exploring strategy to persuade Pyongyang to drop its opposition to resuming negotiations with China, Russia, Japan, South Korea (news - web sites) and the United States.
Rice and the two Japanese ministers are all new to their jobs, so it is an occasion for wide-ranging discussions, said Hatsuhisa Takashima, the Japanese foreign ministry spokesman.
In an interview Friday, he said that based on "our long-standing alliance" the two sides were seeking a common strategy to deal with terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the continuing problem of conventional weapons.
Reflecting growing U.S. concern about China's aims, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith said Thursday: "For a country like China, the fundamental choice is whether it wishes to join the group of advanced economies whose relationships are governed by the 'rules of the road' of the international state system."
Feith, who helps formulate Pentagon (news - web sites) policy, said that of all the countries growing in power, China is the one most likely to have the greatest effect on international relations in the years ahead.
When President Bush (news - web sites) visits Europe next week, he will try in what is likely to be a futile effort to persuade the European Union (news - web sites) to leave in place a 15-year-old arms embargo on China.
"The president has real concerns about it," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Thursday.
As for China's behavior, Hadley said, "We all have an interest in China continuing to move in the direction of democracy and freedom, and being a constructive member of the international community."
The Europeans, he said, share U.S. concerns about human rights in China.
In East Asia, Japan is showing a growing inclination to stand with the United States on self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province that must be reabsorbed by the mainland. It split with Beijing amid civil war in 1949.
Praising Japan as a steadfast ally, Rice said Friday that maintaining peace in the Asia Pacific region was a shared goal and that she looked forward to a joint effort with Japan to restrain China from using force against Taiwan.
That mutual goal reflects a "very deep and broad relationship" between Washington and Tokyo, she said.
Until now, Japan mostly has left it to the United States to deal with China's wrath and threats to use force against Taiwan.
Rice, in a news conference with visiting Foreign Minister Bernard Bot of The Netherlands, reiterated the long-standing U.S. admonition to China.
"There should be no attempt to change the status quo unilaterally," she said.
The U.S. security alliance with Japan has formed the backbone of U.S. foreign policy in Asia, but the two allies have long disagreed about how to deal with China's territorial claim over Taiwan.
Washington has indicated it would intervene if China tried to take Taiwan by force. A cautious Japan has traditionally sought to avoid involvement.
