China repeats warning against U.S. arms sales to Taiwan

Taiwan hopes to buy more weapons from the U.S.

In this story: Table tennis rematch Harder line RELATED STORIES

BEIJING, China -- China has once more warned the U.S. against selling arms to rival Taiwan on the 30th anniversary of "ping-pong diplomacy," which paved the way for formal bilateral ties.

The official China Daily newspaper quoted Defense Minister Chi Haotian as telling visiting former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Washington had to "understand the impact" such a move would have on U.S.- China ties.

Chi's comments reinforce a message which will be delivered by Vice Premier Qian Qichen to President George W. Bush in the U.S. capital later this week.

Qian arrived in the United States on Sunday for a week-long visit to New York and Washington. He is due to meet Bush on March 22, and is the first senior Chinese official to meet the new U.S. president.

Table tennis rematch

As Qian headed for the negotiating table, Kissinger was put to the test over a ping-pong table in Beijing.

State television showed the architect of U.S. rapprochement with China playing against Vice Premier Li Lanqing to commemorate meetings between U.S. and Chinese teams at the table tennis world championships in Japan in March 1971.

Those contacts led to a visit by the U.S. team to China the following month. Kissinger and then U.S. President Richard Nixon visited Beijing in 1972. And China and the United States established diplomatic ties in 1979.

"This is for me a very moving occasion," state media quoted Kissinger as saying.

"The Sino-American friendship is in the United States no longer an issue between the parties," he said. "It has become the position of all key personalities in both parties."

Harder line

The new Republican Bush administration has shown signs it will take a harder line towards China than the previous Democrat administration of Bill Clinton.

Qian is expected to raise concerns the United States will agree next month to sell large numbers of advanced weapons to Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland -- by force if necessary.

Still Bush, like Clinton, is likely to defer Taipei's request to buy four AEGIS-equipped guided missile destroyers armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the most advanced item on Taiwan's list, U.S. analysts say

Reuters contributed to this report.

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