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By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 3, 2001; Page A01

The Pentagon downgraded U.S. military contacts with China yesterday, a step that appears to signal a further hardening of the Bush administration's policy toward Beijing.

In a day of contradictory statements, the Pentagon at first said it was suspending all contacts between the two militaries, which have included reciprocal visits by warships to U.S. and Chinese ports, nearly annual trips by senior officers and lower-level exchanges in such fields as military medicine.

Then, after a hectic round of telephone calls among top officials, the Defense Department retracted that statement. Instead of a complete suspension, it said, all contacts between the U.S. and Chinese militaries would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Officials said the initial memorandum, written by Christopher Williams, an aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, had misrepresented the secretary's intentions. Adm. Craig Quigley, the Pentagon spokesman, called it an "honest misinterpretation by a member of" Rumsfeld's staff.

But others in government said some officials outside the Pentagon had been informed about the planned suspension earlier in the week. One Republican staff aide on Capitol Hill said that Williams, a former deputy staff director of the Senate intelligence committee, was "very careful, very cautious, and particularly well-known for coordinating with others."

The about-face was similar to another administration reversal in early April, when the Agriculture Department announced it was eliminating salmonella testing of ground beef served to children in federal school lunch programs. The next day, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said the tests would continue, blaming a "low-level" department official for making the decision without her approval.

Last week, President Bush also appeared to step away from a 23-year-old U.S. policy when he said in a television interview that the United States would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan if it were attacked by mainland China. White House officials did not retract that statement but strove to clarify that there had been no alteration in the long-standing policy of leaving it unclear whether the United States would defend Taiwan.

Quigley yesterday characterized Rumsfeld's closer scrutiny of military exchanges as "a more cautious approach." In the past, an entire year's worth of visits between the militaries of the two nations would be examined and approved in advance; now each visit will be looked at individually, Quigley said.

The downgrading, which follows a two-month review of the military contacts, is the latest in a series of decisions by the administration that are redefining U.S.-Chinese relations. Last month, over vigorous objections from Beijing, Bush approved the proposed sale to Taiwan of submarine-hunting aircraft, Kidd-class destroyers and, possibly, diesel submarines. The United States also has irked Beijing by issuing travel visas to Taiwan's current and former presidents. And in a largely symbolic move, the Pentagon announced earlier this week that the Army would not use berets made in China, even though they had already been purchased.

The diminishment of military ties also reflects a judgment by some senior officials that two decades of contacts with Chinese officers have not been very productive. U.S. officials were particularly disappointed when those contacts proved of little help last month in securing the release of 24 crew members of a Navy EP-3E reconnaissance plane that made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island after a midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

The relationship between the U.S. and Chinese militaries goes back to 1979, soon after the formal resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

For the first 10 years, the focus was on bolstering the Chinese military against the Soviet Union. The United States, for example, helped upgrade China's F-8 fighter -- the same aircraft that collided with the Navy EP-3E last month. In exchange, China's military provided intelligence that helped the United States respond to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. China also provided small arms and even mules to help Afghan fighters move their supplies, according to "About Face," a history of U.S.-China relations by reporter James Mann.

But the relationship has been rockier over the last 10 years. In June 1989, after the Chinese army cracked down on demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the United States suspended military contacts, and never resumed sales of military equipment to China.

In 1999, relations were again strained when a U.S. Air Force B-2 bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo air campaign. China has never accepted the U.S. explanation that the bombing was a mistake.

The U.S. military also has been frustrated by what it saw as a lack of reciprocity in the military contacts. Chinese officers visiting the United States were welcomed on military installations, while U.S. officers visiting China were kept drinking tea in reception areas, an administration official said.

He noted that in 1998, a U.S. Army general broke off a trip to China after being kept in a reception area and told that there were no military activities going on in the area, even though he could hear troops firing heavy weapons in the distance.