Broker role for Shipley at summit

Could Auckland thaw the recently frosty relationship between China and the United States? TERENCE O'BRIEN previews the meeting of the presidents tomorrow.

The agenda for Apec is economic. The issues for Apec, both at the meeting itself and outside, are decidedly political. They are also wide-ranging and it will be a challenge for New Zealand media to provide comprehensive reporting and analysis.

East Timor casts a real shadow but there are other foreign policy issues for New Zealand. The Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, is scheduled to hold bilateral exchanges with Mrs Shipley and with President Clinton.

Relations between China and the United States are going through a rough patch. It was Mrs Shipley's suggestion that the two leaders should employ the opportunity at Auckland to meet. That lends an extra measure to our vested interest in a positive outcome, underlined by the Prime Minister's scheduled encounters with both leaders.

Nothing of comparable diplomatic significance has occurred in New Zealand before this Apec summit. How New Zealand conducts the conference and organises the meetings will fashion impressions of others about our competence, and the contribution the country can offer to the region as one of the smallest nations of Apec.

The Prime Minister's tour to North-east Asia in July and the prompt reciprocal visits by leaders of Japan, China and Korea (especially the official visits by the last two) have served to keep New Zealand on the radar screens of North-east Asian capitals.

All this requires New Zealand to comprehend the political and other issues which are the subject of high-level exchange by others while in this country.

China is profoundly discomfited by Taiwan's ambitions for international status that appears to repudiate the one-China policy that has underpinned order in Pacific East Asia, and beyond, for more than 30 years. New Zealand's own political and security policies rest firmly on the foundation of one-China.

The policy has been the bedrock for China's emergence into regional affairs in a way that reassures neighbours and others of its peaceable intentions. American acknowledgment of one-China has been the cornerstone for its policies, and role, in Pacific East Asia. One-China permeates regionalism, including in Apec, where a unique formula has been devised to allow Taiwan and China to sit around the same table.

China's sensibilities have been sharpened by certain other developments. It sees conspiracy at work in the recent bombing of its Belgrade embassy by Nato. It professes that the strengthening of United States-Japan military security ties is intended to contain China.

For similar reasons it has voiced opposition to the installation of an American missile defence system in North-east Asia which American defence officials have championed with Japan. The installation, if it eventuates, would substantially modify the strategic security landscape in North-east Asia to China's disadvantage, at least in Beijing's eyes.

Critics of the missile defence proposal, including those inside the United States, have been concerned for some time at the message it sends to Taiwan. They fear that Taiwan, confident of ultimate American missile protection, will be encouraged to repudiate the one-China policy. These fears seem prescient in the light of Taiwan's most recent actions.

The American Administration has been quick to reprimand Taiwan. But Taiwan has a more sympathetic audience in the Congress, where alleged (but unproven) Chinese theft of American nuclear secrets and exports of missile technology are regarded as unfriendly.

This suggests American policy towards China could well become a divisive issue in the American Presidential campaign. A substantive agreement in Auckland about Chinese membership of the World Trade Organisation would help redress the negative factors. An imminent WTO round of trade-liberalisation negotiations without China as a full member is strategically illogical.

The delicacy of the situation calls for restraint on all sides - China itself, Taiwan and the United States. As the venue provider, New Zealand should not be diffident about suggesting restraint at the meetings Mrs Shipley will hold with both Presidents and others. It is hardly an original thought and others at Apec, larger and stronger than New Zealand, will assuredly and quietly be making the same point.

The visit of Korea's President Kim dae Jung will afford New Zealand another perspective on North-east Asian affairs. New Zealand's economic and other interests require that it heeds issues considered vital by Seoul.

The South Korean Government has been reticent over American ideas for a missile system, though it is a military ally of Washington. This reticence reflects the growing ties between China and Korea, one of the least noticed developments (by outsiders) in the region. It is evidence too of a more individualistic Korean foreign policy.

President Kim dae Jung's perspectives, particularly on the vital matter of North Korea's future, should be material in shaping New Zealand's own thinking. The President has stuck firmly with his "sunshine policy" of openness towards the North, despite opponents inside his own country and sceptics in other places, including the United States.

An eventually reunified Korea, Kim's great ambition, would certainly change the political landscape of North-east Asia, but the prospect remains a distant one, although precise forecasting about such matters is always risky.

* Terence O'Brien, a former diplomat, is a commentator on international affairs.