胡锦涛主席访美专题报道

Two countries, one system … Hu Jintao takes part in a toast with Bill Gates at a banquet hosted by the Microsoft chairman.
Photo: Reuters/Ted Warren

By Joseph Kahn in Seattle
April 20, 2006

THE Chinese President, Hu Jintao, on his way to talks with President George Bush, began courting American business leaders on a four-day US tour intended to soothe qualms about China's surging trade surplus and rising political power.

The summit with Mr Bush, expected to cover trade and moves to avert nuclear advances in North Korea and Iran, is also likely to touch on intellectual property. US industry groups estimate 90 per cent of DVDs, music CDs and software sold in China are pirated.

Mr Hu, who today will make his first visit to the White House since becoming China's top leader more than three years ago, landed in Everett, north of Seattle, on Tuesday and plunged into meetings with local officials and business executives, including the chairman of Starbucks, Howard Schultz.

"I hope my visit will strengthen dialogue, deepen cooperation," Mr Hu said shortly after he arrived.

He later visited the headquarters of the software giant Microsoft, before dining with local dignitaries at the $US100 million ($135 million) lakeside mansion of Bill Gates, the company's chairman. Yesterday, Boeing was to be his host at its aircraft factory in Everett.

At Microsoft headquarters, Mr Hu lavishly praised the company. Microsoft has struggled to find a firm foothold in China, which is widely accused of pirating software on an industrial scale, but has recently signed deals with Chinese companies that could lead to a sharp increase in sales of its Windows operating system.

"I admire what you have achieved at Microsoft," Mr Hu told Mr Gates in front of reporters. "You, Mr Bill Gates, are a friend of China, and I'm a friend of Microsoft."

He added, "I am dealing with the operating system produced by Microsoft every day."

The business focus follows a tradition set by Deng Xiaoping on his first visit to the US in 1979, when he communed with American capitalists just as China began to shed its Maoist legacy and open up to the outside world.

Beijing has since treated close ties to American business leaders as vital to its overall relations with Washington, because the two countries are much more integrated economically than politically, diplomatically or culturally.

Mr Hu, 63, has made multiple trips to Europe, Russia, Asian neighbours and even Latin American and African countries since assuming China's top political posts, head of the Communist Party and President, in 2002 and 2003.

At least initially he put less emphasis on forging tighter links with the US, which he has criticised in domestic speeches as a potential threat to China's ruling Communist Party. But Chinese officials and analysts say he has since made clear that internal priorities - maintaining rapid economic growth and tamping down a wave of unrest over corruption, governmental land grabs, and severe pollution - are better served if Beijing cultivates cordial relations with Washington.

The New York Times, Reuters

Gates opens up to China
Email Print Normal font Large font By Sam Howe Verhovek, Redmond, Washington
April 20, 2006



Chinese President Hu Jintao calls himself a "friend of Microsoft".
Photo: AP




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AdvertisementTHE setting, Microsoft's ultra-wired "Home of the Future", was faintly evocative of the American National Exhibit in Moscow in 1959 showcasing colour televisions and other world-beating US technology.

But when Chinese President Hu Jintao got together with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, there was nothing like the famous "kitchen debate" in which then US vice-president Richard Nixon and then Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev held a spirited discussion about the relative merits of the two superpowers' technological prowess.

Instead, President Hu got red-carpet treatment at the software giant's headquarters. In turn, he described himself as a "friend of Microsoft" and a great admirer of Mr Gates.

President Hu made the Seattle area his first stop on a three-day tour that will include a meeting with President George Bush tomorrow in Washington, DC. Trade tensions are expected to take centre stage.

President Hu's Air China 747 touched down yesterday in Everett, at the complex where Boeing produces the jumbo jet. He and his wife, Liu Yongqing, were greeted by a parade of North-West dignitaries, including Washington Governor Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke, her predecessor, who was the nation's first Chinese-American governor.

But President Hu's entourage was also dogged by several hundred protesters, some dressed in traditional silk outfits of blue and pink, who gathered within half a block of his Seattle hotel and banged drums and issued chants calling on China to get out of Tibet and free political prisoners.

Members of Falun Gong, a spiritual group, also demanded President Hu stop what they described as torture and persecution of the group's followers.

At Microsoft, a truck halted within 45 metres of the building where President Hu had his tour and unfurled a large blue banner proclaiming: "New China Rises When CCP Is Gone". The acronym refers to the Chinese Communist Party. President Hu did not acknowledge the protesters.

At Microsoft, President Hu entered a conference centre decorated with Chinese and American flags, and red banners with yellow Chinese characters that said he was "warmly welcome" at Microsoft.

So many reporters were at the event ― about 125 ― many from Chinese news organisations, there was no way to accommodate all of them for the tour itself, officials said.

In brief remarks as President Hu left with Mr Gates, he said China would work to "protect intellectual property rights".

This is a reference to software and film piracy, a major US-China trade sticking point. Bootleg versions of Windows and major Hollywood films are widely available in China.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Visit shows Hu's the boss

20apr06

CHINESE President Hu Jintao has kicked off his first official US visit by shaking hands and charging glasses with the world's richest man, Microsoft boss Bill Gates.







Mr Hu was in Seattle to meet business leaders eager for a bigger share of China's market.
He will then head to Washington DC for talks with politicians wary of the emerging superpower's muscular stance on trade, energy and currency policy.

At Microsoft Corp's campus, Mr Hu said he admired what Mr Gates had achieved.

He also sought to reassure Mr Gates that China was serious about protecting intellectual property rights, a key concern for the company as it battles widespread piracy of its Windows operating system there.

"Because you, Mr Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I'm a friend of Microsoft," Mr Hu said through a translator.

"Also, I am dealing with the operating system produced by Microsoft every day," he added, to laughter.

Mr Gates responded: "Thank you. It's a fantastic relationship," and then quipped: "And if you ever need advice on how to use Windows, I'll be glad to help."

Washington state was Mr Hu's first stop on an ambitious four-day US tour, which comes at a time of unease among US businesses, political leaders, and the public about how China is using its new power.

His meeting with US President George W. Bush will cover a broad agenda, from China's much-criticised currency and other trade policies to its aggressive search for oil and its stance towards nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

A GROUP of top British surgeons has accused China of harvesting the bodies of executed convicts for transplant organs then selling them to the highest bidder.

British Transplantation Society chairman Stephen Wigmore said there was growing evidence that convicts were being selected for execution to suit the needs of paying organ recipients, a report on the BBC website said.

Prof Wigmore said thousands of organs were being collected without donors' consent.

Despite Chinese denials, Prof Wigmore said: "The weight of evidence has accumulated to a point over the last few months where it's really incontrovertible, in our opinion."

Hu: China's expanding reform will boost trade with U.S.

P-I STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

China's expanding reform will boost opportunities for trade with Washington and the rest of the United States, President Hu Jintao told the guests at a dinner held in his honor Tuesday night at the Medina mansion of Microsoft's Bill Gates.

Hu also paid homage to the Seattle area's corporate giants -- acknowledging Microsoft and Boeing as "household names" in his country, and observing that Starbucks coffee shops have multiplied rapidly in China's cities.

 
  The AP
Chinese President Hu Jintao, left, sits with Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire at the head table Tuesday during dinner at Bill Gates' home. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool)
The remarks, the most extensive since China's president arrived in the Seattle area Tuesday morning, may have provided a preview of the policy speech to be delivered by Hu in Everett later today.

Afterward, Hu will depart for Washington, D.C. -- where the discussions, over such issues as the China-U.S. trade imbalance, promise to be more difficult than those Hu held with the Seattle area's business and government leaders.

From a Reuters pool report, these were Hu's comments at the Gates mansion Tuesday night, as spoken through a translator:

"Today, many cargo ships are very busy crossing the Pacific Ocean laden with the rich fruit of our strong trade ties and friendship between our two peoples," Hu said.

Hu noted that China's trade volume with the U.S. grew to $211.6 billion in 2005 from over $2.4 billion in 1979, increasing by more than 80 times.

"All these speak to the fact that China-U.S. trade relations now rank among the most important financial trade agreements in the world," Hu said.

"Microsoft and Boeing are household names in my country and Starbucks coffee shops have mushroomed in China's cities," said Hu.



"If I were not serving in this office, I would certainly prefer to go into one of the coffee shops run by Starbucks," Hu said, eliciting laughter from the crowd, including Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz.

"Our two sides need to continue to step up our cooperation in economic and trading ties, education and public health," Hu said.

"I'm sure with the further deepening of China's reform and opening up, I am sure we are going to see an even broader prospect for the economic cooperation and trade between China and Washington state and China and the United States as a whole," said Hu.

"While different in social system and cultural tradition, China and the United States pursue the same goal of promoting economic and social development and making life better for their peoples," said Hu.

"We share common strategic interests in a wide range of areas, particularly in maintaining world peace, promoting global economic growth, combating terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," said Hu.

"Tomorrow, when I am in another Washington, I will have an opportunity to meet President Bush and other American leaders and during the meetings, we will exchange views on bilateral relationship and other major regional as well as international issues."


SPEECH

TVW will air Hu's speech today at the Future of Flight Museum at 9:30 p.m. Thursday. It will also be available to view in streaming video on TVW's Web site.

P-I reporter Todd Bishop contributed to this report.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, left, sits with Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire at the head table Tuesday during dinner at Bill Gates' home. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool)

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The Redmond giant is hard to keep up with. But we'll try here. Check back often for updated news on Microsoft, compiled by CIO News Writer Al Sacco.

Apr 19, 2006
China's President Hu Dines With Bill Gates
APR 19, 2006 07:32:04 AM   View/Add Comments (1) | Permalink
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Chinese President Hu Jintao kicked off his trip to the United States on Tuesday with a visit to Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash., and dinner at the home of Bill Gates, the company’s chairman and chief software architect.

During his visit to Microsoft’s campus, Hu assured Gates that China is committed to protecting intellectual property (IP) rights, China’s state-run media reported. He also told Gates that China welcomed further investment from Microsoft, the reports said.

IP infringement, including software piracy, is a big source of friction between China and the United States. More than 90 percent of software used in China is unlicensed, according to a U.S. government estimate. In a bid to soothe U.S. concerns, the Chinese government has pushed PC makers to pre-install copies of licensed software on the computers they produce.

One day before Hu’s arrival in the United States, Microsoft and Lenovo Group, China’s largest PC maker, inked a US$1.2 billion deal to install licensed versions of Microsoft’s operating system on PCs sold in China and other countries. Microsoft signed similar deals with two other Chinese PC makers earlier this month.

Following his tour of Microsoft’s campus and a visit to a local school, Hu was a guest for dinner at the Gates home. The dinner was attended by about 100 guests, including former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, a prominent Chinese-American politician, China’s media reported.

Hu’s visit to Microsoft had originally been planned for last year but was postponed following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated large areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast.

His current U.S. trip is part of a five-nation tour that will last until April 29 and include stops in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya. He will meet with President Bush on Thursday in Washington, D.C., for talks that are expected to focus on a range of issues, including bilateral trade, North Korea and Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

-Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service

For related news coverage, read Why Piracy Isn’t Going Away in China and Copyright Group: China Talks Yield ‘Modest’ Success.

This article is posted on our Microsoft Informer page. For more news on the Redmond, Wash.-based powerhouse, keep checking in.

Also, have a listen to CIO Publisher Gary Beach’s podcast on Microsoft’s upcoming operating system, Vista, as well as the topic of open source.

Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage.
 




Readers Viewpoint

China IP
Posted: APR 19, 2006 09:44:13 AM
That’s the whole point. China is starting to clean up its IP act because it aspires to become a software development center and if it is to become that, it must clean up its act. I have no doubt Beijing is serious about increasing IP enforcement, but I am less sure it will be able to drive home its policies in the regions.

www.chinalawblog.com
Dan Harris
Attorney
China Law Blog

Hu says relationship with Boeing 'win-win'


APR. 19 3:27 P.M. ET Calling his country's relationship with the Boeing Co. an example of the "win-win" potential of China-U.S. trade, Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday told an audience of aircraft workers that China will need thousands of new planes in coming years.

Hu's speech at the company's massive Everett plant comes just days after Chinese officials confirmed a commitment to order 80 Boeing 737 jets, in a deal valued at $5.2 billion at list prices. The order has yet to be finalized, and airlines typically negotiate discounts.

"Boeing's cooperation with China is a living example of the mutually beneficial cooperation and win-win outcome that China and the United States have achieved from trade with each other," Hu said. "In the next 15 years, the demand for new aircraft will reach 2,000 planes. This clearly points to a bright tomorrow for future cooperation between Boeing and China."



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Boeing has estimated that China will require 2,600 new airplanes over the next 20 years.
The Boeing deal is one of several purchases the Chinese have announced recently as officials try to ease tensions over the massive trade gap between the U.S. and China. It is one of several issues President Bush is expected to raise when Hu heads to Washington, D.C.

Hu's meeting Thursday with Bush will cover a broad agenda, from China's much-criticized currency and other trade policies, to its aggressive search for oil and its positions on the developing nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

Workers at the Boeing plant were eager for a glimpse of Hu.

"China is one of the largest markets for Boeing," said Craig Thompson, an engineer at the Everett plant. "The guy's coming here. I'm going to listen to what he has to say."

Hu began his day Wednesday at his downtown Seattle hotel by visiting with China scholars and academics, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Defense Secretary William J. Perry.

On Tuesday, Hu toured Microsoft Corp.'s suburban Redmond campus and dined at company chairman Bill Gates' home. Hu said he admired what Gates had achieved. He also sought to reassure Gates that China is serious about protecting intellectual property rights, a key concern for the company as it battles widespread piracy of its Windows operating system there.

"Because you, Mr. Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I'm a friend of Microsoft," Hu said through a translator. "Also, I am dealing with the operating system produced by Microsoft every day," he added, to laughter.

Gates responded: "Thank you, it's a fantastic relationship," and then quipped: "And if you ever need advice on how to use Windows, I'll be glad to help."

Hu, Gates, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and an entourage of Chinese dignitaries saw some business technology demonstrations and toured Microsoft's Home of the Future, which features experimental technology.

Demonstrators both in support and opposition to Hu lined the streets near his downtown Seattle hotel. Supporters waved Chinese and American flags.

Members of the spiritual movement Falun Gong, condemned by the Chinese government as an evil cult, staked out all four corners around the hotel Tuesday to protest treatment of the movement's followers in China.

At the entrance to Microsoft's campus, protesters waved signs in Chinese and English that read "Stop web censorship" and "Release all political prisoners."

Letter from China: Is it a 'peaceful rise'? U.S. shouldn't bet on it
Howard W. French International Herald Tribune

THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2006


SHANGHAI During his visit to the United States, China's Hu Jintao will work hard to convey a message that is emerging as a central theme of his presidency: His country is not a threat to the United States; indeed, it doesn't even wish to be seen as a challenger.

In the recent past, China's leaders have struggled over how best to convey this thought, issuing tortured slogans like "peaceful rise," for example, that are adopted and dropped with equal ambivalence.

The message coming from Beijing these days is that the country's leadership is so preoccupied with domestic problems that it has neither the time nor the inclination to challenge America's lingering pre-eminence.

A word to the wise: don't believe it.

It is absolutely true that China's own problems consume most of its energy, and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

Whether the country's rickety system can muddle through is anything but a foregone conclusion. It is increasingly outpaced by change on the ground, and by colossal problems of every kind - from the environment and energy to an ever more sophisticated and freethinking citizenry.

In the meantime, though, and regardless of the answer, no amount of stealthy diplomatic posturing can obscure the fact that China is growing more powerful and more assertive by the day, and in the process, a new world order is being shaped.

Lest anyone suspect hostility in this rebuttal of China's new line, one hastens to add that this is exactly the way it should be. China obviously constitutes a huge slice of humanity. It has an exceptionally long history of power on the world stage, against which the last two centuries of relative weakness are a mere blip. And like any fast- rising power, its re-emergence will change the rules of the game.

The devil, as they say, is in the details, which is why one might hope for more candor from the country's leaders, both toward the outside world and toward their own people. They are still spoon-fed a saccharine-laced and ultimately dangerous form of history that paints their China as the eternal innocent: happily self-contained and fair and courtly toward others.

For all of Hu's denials, though, the outlines of China's challenge to the United States are already beginning to take shape, and they are nothing less than sweeping.

In keeping with the emphasis on stealth, the first element in China's recent playbook is to stay out of the way while the United States undermines its own position in the world.

"China is becoming attractive to developing countries not only because of what China is doing, but because of the what the U.S. is doing," said Zheng Yongnian director of research at the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham in Britain. "It is quite natural for them to like China if they don't like what America is doing. They want an alternative, in the same way as countries looked to the Soviet Union during the Cold War."

The Soviet parallel, however, ends there. Zheng said that in this phase of its development, the most effective way for China to counterbalance the United States is to have pro-American policies, hence the calming rhetoric.

The United States has "overwhelmingly emphasized military force, which creates a zero sum game, which many people cannot accept," Zheng said. China, by contrast, is doing what Washington once excelled at, emphasizing economic multilateralism: embracing regional and international organizations, signing trade pacts and becoming an ever bigger player in the foreign aid game.

China's advice to the world's poor resembles its strategy at home: "development first, politics later." This stress on the overwhelming importance of stability - no matter how undemocratic, corrupt or environmentally irresponsible the regime - has even led to the coining of a phrase, the Beijing Consensus. This highlights the contrast with the so-called Washington Consensus that emphasizes elections, free trade and accepting the guidance of the U.S.-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Beijing has carefully avoided endorsement or even explicit mention of any Beijing Consensus, determinedly keeping its head down while plowing forward. And the fruits of this approach are becoming ever more obvious: Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has just visited the South Pacific strongly boosting ties there, where Washington and Australia seem in decline.

President Hu will fly on to Nigeria, the most important country in another neglected region. And China's appeal now stretches deep into the United States' own backyard, Latin America.

Maintaining plausible deniability of the coming challenge is merely a passing phase, however.

Washington is making a mistake to think of China's rise mainly in military terms, for there is far more to it than that. One senses Beijing is serious about wanting to avoid disastrous wars and ruinous arms races. Its challenge, instead, is to another key source of American power, the international system.

What it proposes as a replacement for the status quo is sometimes called tian xia, or under the heavens. It is an obscure sounding but remarkably simple scheme that places all the nations of the world in a rules-based system that is not strictly egalitarian but would be governed by rules. Note to the United States: there is no room for a global hegemony.

As it evolves on a spectrum somewhere between Nazi Germany and contemporary Scandinavia, China will use its growing muscle in trade and finance to draw developing countries, particularly authoritarian ones attracted by its corporatist capitalism, into its embrace.

So when do the masks drop? When does the challenge become explicit?

"My feeling is that they are waiting for a situation where they feel secure enough," said Wang Fei-Ling, a professor of International Affairs at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. "A settlement of things in the Western Pacific, or China's becoming strong enough economically so that it no longer matters what Washington might think, or a democratic change in China itself, which would settle the legitimacy issue. Any of these three things would give them great confidence, and fuel a need to speak out more."

U.S. to Pressure China on Currency Policy

By JEANNINE AVERSA
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; 1:05 PM

WASHINGTON -- The United States will use upcoming meetings of the world's economic powers to keep up the pressure on China to revamp its currency policy, which critics contend is contributing to America's massive trade deficits.

China is "moving far too cautiously in making its currency regime more flexible," Tim Adams, the Treasury Department's under secretary for international affairs, said Wednesday as he talked about Friday's meeting of the world's richest countries and weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.


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The meetings come amid rising trade tensions between the United States and China.

With the U.S. trade deficit with China hitting a record $202 billion last year, the Bush administration is pressing Beijing to take steps_ notably revamping its currency regime _ to narrow the gap. Chinese President Hu Jintao meets President Bush on Thursday.

U.S. manufacturers contend that Beijing is keeping its currency artificially low. That makes Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and U.S.-made goods more expensive in China.

The situation, U.S. manufacturers say, has hurt exports and contributed to the loss of factory jobs.

"China's currency practices are constraining other emerging Asian countries from pursuing greater flexibility," Adams said.

Finance officials from the Group of Seven countries _ the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada _ meet Friday.

It will be the first meeting of the world's major economic powers attended by new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who took the central bank's helm on Feb. 1. He succeeded Alan Greenspan, who retired after 18-plus years running the Fed.

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China still hungry for pirated wares
Even as its president dines at Gates' mansion...

 

Published: Wednesday 19 April 2006

Despite periodic crackdowns on piracy, China has a voracious appetite for cheap, unauthorized copies of software and other digital products.

President Bush has said the issue is a sore point in trade relations that he will raise when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington on Thursday. US officials say up to 90 per cent of software used in China is unlicensed.

In Seattle on Tuesday, at the start of a four-day visit to the US, Hu met Bill Gates, the chairman of software giant Microsoft, whose sales in China have been sapped by widespread piracy.

... five minutes later [the hawker] holds out a Chinese version of Windows XP Professional for 30 yuan - 25 after some friendly haggling.
A Chinese official in Beijing said Hu asked Gates to trust the Chinese government's efforts against piracy.

A spokesman for the State Copyright Bureau, told a news conference: "My understanding of President Hu Jintao's dialogue with Bill Gates… is that it sent the signal that the Chinese government wants foreign investors and businesses to have confidence in China's intellectual property protections."

China has rooted pirate software out of all government offices: the cost for that task in central government offices alone was about $17.5m, according to the spokesman.

Beijing promised Washington that step last year, and the spokesman said China was now working to expand the scheme to other state-owned companies.

Earlier this month, China ordered domestic computer makers to install authorised operating software before their goods leave the factory gates.

But a stroll around Beijing's Zhongguancun neighbourhood, with its warrens of computer shops and stalls, suggests China is far from weaning locals off bootleg software that - while sometimes unreliable - sells for one or two per cent of the cost of much legitimate software.

A stall holder at the Zhonghai Computer Store near Peking University showed a two-page list of Chinese- and English-language software, including Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Excel and heavy-duty CAD industrial design programs.

One hawker, asked for computer software, scurries off to check his cache, kept behind a nearby shed, and five minutes later holds out a Chinese version of Windows XP Professional for 30 yuan ($3.7) - 25 ($3.1) after some friendly haggling.

A legitimate copy sells for about 2,000 yuan ($249).

Li Fuzhen, the hawker, has sold bootleg films, music, software and computer games in this district called China's "silicon valley" for three years. He said police raids and arrests of bootleggers have increased since last year, and the trade has receded from open street corners to rooms and huts watched by other hawkers.

Originally a farmer from central China's Henan province, Li said he was briefly arrested for selling bootleg pornography last year.

But other jobs are hard to find, and there is still a steady income from cut-price software, even with police raids to worry about, he said. He also offers fake identity cards and university degrees.

Li said he did not worry about the effects of Chinese software piracy on Gates' company. "Bill Gates has retired, so it's not going to hurt him anyway," he said. "Chinese people are too poor to think about those things."

April 19, 2006]


EDITORIAL: Hu's visit: President Bush must not forget Taiwan

(Tulsa World (OK) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 19--When Chinese President Hu Jintao visits President Bush this week there will be several big issues on the table, including China's huge trade surplus, its position on Iran's nuclear program and its poor human rights record.



It is important that the issue of relations between China and Taiwan not be ignored or downplayed as Hu and Bush meet in Washington, D.C.

Hu recently has been engaged in a public relations effort to build support in tiny Taiwan for reunification with China. Taiwan, an island of 22 million people 100 miles off the Chinese mainland, has for all intents and purposes been an independent nation since the communist takeover of the mainland in 1949. The United States, like most major nations, does not formally recognize Taiwan but nonetheless considers it an ally and a strong trade partner. In fact, the U.S. is pledged to assist in Taiwan's defense.

Over the weekend in Beijing, Hu told a visiting group of Taiwanese politicians, academics and business leaders that Taiwan's leaders should agree to new talks on reunification. At the same time he announced several small concessions, including tariff cuts on imports of some commodities from Taiwan and slight loosening of restrictions on travel from the mainland to Taiwan.

Taiwan's residents are split on the issue. Some want complete independence, some favor reunification and many prefer maintaining the status quo.

But lurking beneath Hu's PR campaign is China's threat to attack if Taiwan pursues formal independence. He said Sunday that the "independence forces" in Taiwan -- he would include President Chen Shui-bian among them -- represent the biggest threat to peace in the region.

That is ludicrous. None of the other countries in the region, Taiwan included, poses the slightest threat to China's security. In fact, Taiwan and other countries in the region are frightened by China's recent military buildup.

Taiwan has done well in its not-quite-independent state. It has a successful democratic government with free elections, a thriving economy and an excellent education system that features universal access.

It also has been a loyal friend and ally of the United States. President Bush is not likely to forget that during his talks with China's President Hu, nor should he.