Bush Says It's 'Important to Engage' China

Advisers also said they are pleased about China's moves in recent years to allow its currency to rise, making U.S. exports to China cheaper. Bush acknowledged some economic concerns with China, saying that the Chinese appear to be retreating on promises they made to open their agriculture markets to join the World Trade Organization.

Neoconservatives, human rights activists and others who have thrilled to the president's "freedom agenda" in other parts of the world contend that Bush has muted his rhetoric on democracy in the name of friendly ties with China, while accommodating China on Taiwan.

"In terms of effectiveness, the so-called quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy so far is a failure," said Bob Fu, founder of the China Aid Association and one of several activists who met with Bush last week at the White House. "On the human rights front, as we approach the Olympics, China really has the worst record and is deteriorating up until today."

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China posed the Bush administration's first foreign policy crisis, when a Chinese fighter jet and a Navy EP-3 reconnaissance plane collided off the coast of China in April 2001. The Chinese pilot vanished, and the hobbled spy plane landed on Hainan island, where the crew was placed in the custody of Chinese authorities. Chinese officials refused to return U.S. phone calls for 24 hours, adding drama to a situation that some officials worried could lead to military conflict.

The crisis was defused by two weeks of tense diplomacy, led by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage. Bush recounted the incident in the interview: "The lesson of the EP3 was that it's really important to be [in] a position to have quick communications with a nation as large and as important as China," he said.

Officials considered more hawkish on China, such as then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, took some steps after the EP-3 incident, such as limiting military-to-military consultations with China. But the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, shifted the focus of the China hawks, according to many current and former officials. Its eyes on Afghanistan and Iraq, the administration had little interest in a confrontation with China.

U.S. policy toward China, particularly during Bush's second term, has been dominated by pragmatists, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who set up a high-level economic dialogue with China, and former deputy secretary of state Robert B. Zoellick, who argued publicly that China should become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system.

The threat of terrorism also helped transform China in the administration's eyes, from a potential adversary to a potential partner in dealing with North Korea and Iran. China also won points by giving the administration a pass on Iraq. During a meeting with Powell in the run-up to the war, then-Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said that while China opposed an invasion, it would not obstruct U.S. efforts. "They have been studiously silent on Iraq," said Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush.

Current and former advisers also emphasize that Bush came into office with well-developed views on China, a result of the close family association dating to his father's days as a U.S. envoy there in the early 1970s. Bush paid a long visit to his parents in 1975, and in recently published diaries, the elder Bush recalls playing tennis with his son in Beijing and how a Chinese dentist fixed young George's tooth for 60 cents.

Chinese leaders have sought to exploit such family ties. After George W. Bush won the presidency, China sent Yang Jiechi to Washington as ambassador. Yang, now foreign minister, had served as an interpreter for Bush's father during a 1977 tour of China and was nicknamed "Tiger" by the Bush family.

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