WHY US HANDLES CHINA WITH CARE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100040106-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 106
• Publication Date: January 22, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/22: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100040106-0
STAT
tF' IC=:E APPEARED
CN PAGZ
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
22 January 1982
handles'-China'"with care.",
OF -
3IPID ACY
By Joseph C. Harsh If Mr. Reagan in Washington had decided
to sell the latest American-military weapons
We wilt -never know what would have happened if Presi- to Taiwan; the enemies of Deng would have
dent Reagan had-decided to ignore warnings from Peking had a political -weapon to use against him.
and had allowed the Nationalist Chinese,on,,Taiwan to buy. :Might they have unseated him = with that
military aircraft far more modern than any. -weapon?
possessed by the mainland Chinese.- That depends on how solid or weak is then,
There are two schools-of thought ifrWash- political ground in Peking; That rnattercan-
ington about what would have happened- not be judged with confidence in Washington.
One- school,. mostly. among . Republican But there Was certainly a risk-inherent in 'the
politicians, argues that China - gains -more decision.
than the United States does-from the US-Chi -- Had it gone irr favor of- dispatching the
nese relationship. Therefore, the adherents of ;modern weapons to- Taiwan, the pattern of
this school think,, Washington cork. sell any- _ world relations that began with the Nixon tri p-
thing It likes to Taiwan and. the men in Peking will do noth- 'Ito China might have come undone. The world
..,. __..
ing but huff and puff;- ~; : - -ould then have returned to the earlier?condi
The other, dominant school, which includes most of the lion in which the-US-faced a hostile coalition
China experts in the State Department and at the Central- of the Soviet Union and China.
.