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Posted on 09/30/2001 3:05:44 PM PDT by aculeus

BEIJING, Sept. 29 — Despite a history of condemning American incursions abroad and a chronic fear of encirclement by the West, the Chinese government has expressed strong support for the new American war on terrorism. It even seems to accept the idea of limited American military strikes in China's own neighborhood.

Like Russia, which has also performed a stunning about-face, China has practical reasons for supporting a campaign against violent Islamic fundamentalists. Though it has been spared any bloody conflict comparable to that in Chechnya, China fears the emergence of unrest and terrorism at home, most immediately in the largely Muslim frontier province of Xinjiang, where a stewing separatist movement has occasionally set off bombs or attacked the police.

But the Chinese leaders also see an opportunity in the current crisis to meet a broader goal: to forge an improvement in overall relations with the United States and other Western countries, according to policy experts and diplomats on both sides of the Pacific.

"The Chinese government understands that if the United States can be attacked like this, so can China," said Lu Gang, professor of Russian studies at East China Normal University in Shanghai. "Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympics, and if the menace of international terrorism isn't extinguished by then, China could face a direct and serious threat."

"I'm hopeful that this event will help the United States and China find more common ground and lead to an improvement in relations," Mr. Lu added. "Not just an improvement, but a major improvement."

Western diplomats here say it is too soon to tell if Chinese-American relations will be transformed, but they do not describe the hope as far- fetched.

China's leaders are watching, warily, to see how the geopolitics of Central Asia will be redrawn as the confrontation with the Taliban plays out. They are deeply worried about the fate of their nuclear-armed ally Pakistan, which could be torn apart. They hope that their fledgling alliance with Russia and nearby Muslim states of the former Soviet Union, largely meant to counter groups like the Taliban, can be strengthened.

At the same time, Beijing does not relish seeing a new Western military beachhead so near its homeland, and like Moscow it fears that Washington might go overboard in its retribution.

Still, the Chinese can quietly rejoice in the shift in Washington's priorities toward a shared concern. Many Chinese and Western scholars say that if China can join meaningfully in the antiterror campaign, mutual trust may build and the obsession of Republican hawks with a "China threat" may fade.

"For China, this is a chance for a fresh start with the Bush administration," said Chas. W. Freeman, a defense consultant and former diplomat in Washington who was in Beijing right after the Sept. 11 events speaking with officials and scholars.

The smoothing of economic and political ties with the West is a prime goal of the leaders here, who see domestic development and stability as their overriding challenge and who are already bracing for new pressures as the country enters the World Trade Organization.

Beijing officials know that vital differences over Taiwan and human rights will not disappear. But to the extent that China's internal opponents resort to terrorist tactics, officials have indicated, they do expect more sympathy from abroad. "There should be no double standards," a spokesman said last week.

For now, the Chinese are still hedging their bets about the American-led campaign. Since the day of the hijackings and attacks, the television and press here have had instructions to keep their reporting on a modest keel — factual, but not nearly as extensive or emotional as coverage in most media worldwide. Diplomats here think this reflects the ruling party's reluctance to stir up public passions too much before it is sure about China's official stance.

But so far both sides have "sent the right signals," as a European diplomat here put it, with China publicly acknowledging the enormity of the crimes and the need for a robust American response, and the United States, for its part, taking unusual care to gain multilateral support.

China has said it will not become directly involved in the current military campaign, although in a sign of the cooperative mood a team of Chinese security specialists just visited Washington for rare exchanges that American officials called useful.

It has left intentionally vague just how much American military action it could countenance, apparently waiting to see what happens first.

Still, the contrast with China's vitriolic reaction to the Kosovo war is stark. This time, it has simply said that any immediate punitive measures should be justified by evidence, be precise and "consistent with the United Nations Charter and international law," a vague call that American actions will arguably meet in any case.

But if the United States is to keep China and many other countries on board, it will need to seek a strong United Nations role in the prolonged war against terrorism, diplomats here say.

Even before this month's attacks, China and Russia had forged an unusual form of regional collaboration against unrest, joining with four neighboring Muslim states — Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Formally started last June, the group is to share intelligence and is establishing a regional antiterrorism center, intended to monitor threats like the Taliban-supported rebels in Uzbekistan.

China and Russia have also signed a broader friendship agreement; it is a largely symbolic measure intended to offset what both countries have seen as dangerous American dominance in the world.

The new ties that each country has formed with Washington in recent weeks, and the American bows toward multinational cooperation, could have the surprising effect of reducing the drive for China and Russia to build a stronger alliance.

"If the United States doesn't act too unilaterally in this antiterror campaign — if China and Russia can feel that they are included — then they won't have so much incentive to join together in opposition to American hegemony," Mr. Freeman said.

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