Chinese VP Talks Taiwan With Bush

Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao held substantive talks Wednesday with President Bush and other senior administration officials. It was a crucial get-acquainted meeting for Mr. Bush and Hu, the man in line to be the next president of China, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer.

After their 30-minute meeting, press secretary Ari Fleischer said Mr. Bush told Hu he was pleased with the state of U.S. relations with China and confident the countries can resolve their differences over Taiwan and human rights. The two leaders also discussed the war on terrorism, agricultural issues, missile proliferation, trade and human rights.

Hu later warned publicly that any trouble on the Taiwan question could hurt U.S.-Chinese relations and vigorously defended his country's human rights record.

"Properly handling this question (Taiwan) is the key to promoting our constructive and cooperative relations," Hu said in an evening speech. "If any trouble occurs on the Taiwan question, it would be difficult for China-U.S. relations to move forward, and a retrogression may even occur."

Hu is widely expected to become Communist Party secretary general later this year and president next year. He is something of a mystery man, rarely straying beyond the party line, and the administration has been hoping his visit here will produce insights into his thinking.

Before meeting with Mr. Bush, Hu met separately with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Bush had met with Hu briefly during his February visit to Beijing.

Fleischer said the president "expressed his belief that the United States and China can work well together on a wide range of issues. He noted there may be some disagreements, but he believed they could be addressed productively."

Before the meeting, Fleischer said the president was expected to reaffirm that the administration seeks "a peaceful resolution of any differences between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan and that we do not wish to see provocation on either side of the Taiwan Strait." He listed religious freedom and human rights as other areas of disagreement with China.

In an evening speech to the National Committee on United States-China Relations, an umbrella group that includes pro-business groups interested in promoting U.S. business interests in China, Hu called Taiwan "the most important and sensitive issue at the heart of U.S.-Chinese relations."

And he warned that "selling sophisticated weaponry to Taiwan or upgrading U.S.-Taiwan relations" would be inconsistent with U.S. commitments and serve "neither peace and stability for the Taiwan straits, nor China-U.S. relationship and the common interests of the two countries."

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, has threatened military action if the island declares independence.

Hu said he believed that an overwhelming majority of the Taiwanese people would eventually support the idea of peaceful reunification because they would come to believe it would benefit them.

Hu also defended China's human rights record, saying religious freedom was guaranteed by law in China. He said it had been no easy task "for a big developing country like China with a population of nearly 1.3 billion to have so considerably improved its human rights situation in such a short period of time."

At a luncheon hosted for Hu by Cheney, the main issues were economic development, Taiwan, non-proliferation and the war on terror. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao also attended.

Hu raised the Taiwan issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell during a working dinner at the State Department Tuesday evening. Powell reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to a one-China policy, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. Powell also reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to protection of human rights in China.

Mr. Bush is viewed as more pro-Taiwan than former President Clinton. China reacted angrily in March when the Bush administration decided to grant a visa to Taiwan's defense chief Tang Yiau-ming so he could attend a conference in Florida. He met there the Powell's top aide for East Asia, James Kelly.

The Bush administration also has taken steps to increase transfers of U.S. military equipment to Taiwan.

In Taipei, Joseph Wu, deputy secretary general to Taiwan's president, told reporters the government does not believe Hu's visit will represent a threat to Taiwan's security.

During Hu's travels around the Washington, groups opposed to Chinese control of Tibet demonstrated against him. Hu once served as China's top official in the region.

Meanwhile, the State Department announced the selection of a three-member team that will visit China this month to provide an assessment of the activities of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The team will attempt to determine whether or not the China program of United Nations Population Fund's is in violation of U.S. anti-abortion provisions.