Cheney & China Chat

Vice President Dick Cheney sought Wednesday to prod China to apply more pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, citing new evidence that it has atomic weapons.

The senior administration official said Cheney passed on to Chinese leaders new information obtained from a top Pakistani nuclear scientist suggesting that North Korea had at least three nuclear devices, and was capable of making them from both plutonium and enriched uranium.

"Time is not on our side," the official quoted Cheney as telling Chinese leaders.

Cheney favors resuming stalled six-nation talks, but results are what ultimately count, the U.S. official said. There should be a more aggressive effort to either get the talks back on track or to find other ways of applying pressure on North Korea, the official said.

Pakistan said Tuesday it was sharing with other countries information divulged by A. Q. Khan, but refused comment on a report that he had seen North Korean nuclear devices.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, told interrogators he inspected the weapons briefly during a trip to North Korea five years ago. If true, it would be the first time that any foreigner has reported inspecting an actual North Korean nuclear weapon, the newspaper said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said there was no change in South Korea's basic assessment that the rival North has only enough plutonium for one or two atomic bombs. South Korea has stuck to that evaluation for years, citing a lack of new concrete evidence on the North's secretive nuclear weapons programs.

The Central Intelligence Agency takes that assessment a step further, saying it assumes North Korea has one or two bombs already built.

South Korea has sent questions to the Pakistani government asking for more information about what Khan saw in North Korea, Ban said.

Cheney met separately Wednesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao, his predecessor Jiang Zemin, and Premier Wen Jiabao.

China's vice president, Zeng Qinghong, asked Cheney during a one-on-one meeting on Tuesday for Washington to stop selling weapons to Taiwan, Chinese state media reported.

"There is only one China and Taiwan is part of China," an announcer, citing Zeng, said on the state television news. "We hope the United States can carry out its commitment and not sell weapons to Taiwan and not send wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces."

It is almost unheard of for a senior Chinese leader to deliver such a direct, potentially confrontational message to a visiting foreign leader.

The fact that Zeng, a member of the Communist Party's nine-member Standing Committee — the center of Chinese power — did so in Cheney's first meeting in Beijing showed China's emphasis on the issue.

Cheney said he understands China's opposition to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, but that they are directly related to Beijing's own buildup, said a senior administration official who briefed reporters on Cheney's talks.

Cheney also expressed U.S. concern about China's recent steps to restrict self-government in Hong Kong, suggesting it might also have a bearing on the Taiwan issue, the official said.

"I didn't come to alter Chinese policy. I did come with the mission of making clear what our views were. I think we achieved that," Cheney told reporters after the meetings.

The U.S. vice president later flew to Shanghai, the latest stop on a weeklong Asia trip that will also take him to South Korea.

The status of Taiwan has been an issue between the United States and China for 50 years, Cheney said. "And it's important that there be a very clear open channel of communications between our two nations on that issue."

Cheney also delivered to Chinese leaders a request from the Vatican that it be allowed to send an ambassador to Beijing, the official said.

In addition, the vice president raised anew U.S. problems with China's practice of pegging its currency, the yuan, to the dollar instead of allowing it to rise and fall with market pressures.

Chinese leaders told Cheney that Chinese Vice Premier Huang Ju would travel to the United States later this year to meet with Treasury Secretary John Snow to discuss American concerns.

U.S. manufacturers claim China's rigid currency policy gives China a competitive advantage and helps drive U.S. jobs overseas. China claims it agrees in principle with allowing market forces to set currency rates, but that it must be achieved slowly to avoid damage to its banking system.

The U.S. push for China to loosen its yuan policy might be assisted by rising inflation in China, as reported by The New York Times. A more valuable currency can offset inflation.