THE petty bickering over the arrangements for Chinese President Jiang Zemin's forthcoming encounter with his United States counterpart, Bill Clinton, highlights how difficult it is for the two countries to repair their relations while both sides remain bogged down by the same domestic political considerations that contributed so much to the recent diplomatic rows between them. Mr Jiang wants a high-profile state visit because of the pomp that accompanies this, which would go down well back in Beijing, and so strengthen his standing in the succession stakes. But Mr Clinton can only offer a working visit to the White House, for fear anything more would be a gift to his Republican opponents, who could then accuse him of coddling dictators.
Trivial as this difference might seem, given all the much more weighty matters at stake in Sino-US relations, neither leader can afford to back down. For Mr Jiang it is a matter of face, since the last Chinese President to visit Washington, the late Li Xiannian, received red carpet treatment and was greeted as an 'old friend' by his then counterpart, Ronald Reagan, despite being only a figurehead in the Beijing hierarchy. Equally, Mr Clinton knows any pictures of him in a tuxedo, toasting Mr Jiang, could badly damage his already shaky prospects of re-election next year.
Fortunately, they have agreed to compromise, and the two leaders will now hold their summit in New York instead. Yet the difficulties in even arranging such meeting illustrate how many more hurdles remain to be resolved. Both sides may be making conciliatory gestures, with Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen claiming Washington has promised to place onerous restrictions on future visits by Taiwanese leaders, while the US said they'd received assurances Beijing would stop supplying nuclear reactors to Iran.
But Mr Qian has now denied making any such pledge, and Clinton administration officials are privately warning of more trouble next year, if Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's expected victory in March 1996 elections prompts the Republicans to invite him back to Washington. A more immediate timebomb is China's alleged sale of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran which, if proved, will automatically trigger the imposition of sanctions. So the message from this pre-summit wrangling is that, while Sino-US relations may now be slowly climbing back on to the right track, Presidents Jiang and Clinton have to try harder to bring them back to normal.
