SANYA, China — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday made a rare visit by an American official to a Chinese island once a flash point in relations between the powers and pressed Beijing to settle territorial disputes with its smaller, wary neighbors.
The Obama administration’s top diplomat also urged Chinese officials to use theirinfluence with North Korea to keep the communist country from taking any provocative actions that might disrupt a conference of world leaders set for South Korea next month.
Clinton’s main goal, though, was to seek Chinese help in lowering tensions across East Asia. She proposed hosting a meeting of the United States, China and Japan to ease the latestregional flare-up: competing claims by China and Japan over East China Sea islands, a dispute that has soured ties between Beijing and Tokyo.
She conveyed the messages in a private meeting with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo on Hainan Island just hours after similar talks in Vietnam with Chinese Foreign Minster Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a conferenceof East Asian leaders.
Over the course of the two-hour meeting, Clinton touched on tensions over the island chain, North Korea and the U.S.-China relationship. She encouraged Dai to get North Korea to return to talks about dismantling its nuclear program and reviving ties with South Korea, a U.S. official said.
Clinton also told Dai that the U.S. expects China to ensure that North Korea in no way takes provocative steps during the Group of 20 conference that South Korea will host next month.
“It is in all of our interests for China and Japan to have stable and peaceful relations,” Clinton told reporters in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. The U.S., she said, is “more than willing” to host trilateral talks “where we would discuss a range of issues.”
“We made very clear that we want the temperature to go down on this issue,” said a senior U.S. official who sat in on Clinton’s meetings with Yang and Dai. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private diplomatic exchanges.
Japanese officials have said they would welcome a U.S. role if a trilateral meeting was well-prepared, but neither Yang nor Dai indicated if China would accept U.S. mediation, the official said.
China is also sparring with its neighbors over control of the strategic and potentially oil-rich Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, which are claimed by Vietnam and other nations as well as Beijing. The contested islands straddle busy sea lanes that are a crucial conduit for oil and other resources fueling China’s fastexpanding economy.
In Hanoi, Clinton told the East Asian leaders that a peaceful resolution of all the maritime disputes is a U.S. national security interest. She called on China tocooperate with the regional bloc that represents the other claimants; China wants to deal with the nations individually.
Clinton went to Hainan, a tropical island east of Vietnam in the South China Sea, at the invitation of Dai, who outranks Yang in Beijing’s government hierarchy. The island is rich with symbolism of China’s growing military might and is home to major Chinese military installations, including naval bases and a large surveillance facility.
It was on Hainan that a U.S. Navy spy plane was forced to land in April 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet. China held the 24 U.S. crew members for 11 days until the Bush administration apologized for the collision that killed a Chinese pilot. No U.S. secretary of state had visited the island before.
After seeing Dai, Clinton flew to Cambodia for two days of her two-week, sevennation tour of Asia and the Pacific that will take her to Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia.
On Friday, China accused Japan of ruining the atmosphere for talks between Premier Wen Jiabao and his Japanese counterpart, Naoto Kan, accusing Japan of giving “untrue” media statements. China’s Foreign Ministry then turned on Clinton, expressing “deep dissatisfaction” with her views on the islands.
China’s comments came in reaction to a joint news conference that Clinton held Wednesday in Hawaii with Seiji Maehara, Japan’s foreign minister. Maehara reiterated that the Senkaku Islands, known as the DiaoyuIslands in China, were part of Japanese territory, and Clinton said the disputed island chain falls within the Japan-U.S. security alliance.
“The Senkaku Islands, in terms of history and international law, are inherent territory of Japan,” Maehara said.
Japan’s actions violated “China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue said, according to the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua.
Yang told Clinton that the U.S. should respect China’s sovereignty and not make any “irresponsible remarks,” Xinhua reported.
Clinton also sought to clarify China’s policy on exports of exotic metals that are critical to the global high-tech industry. Recent restrictions on such sales have prompted widespread international concern.
Yang and Dai told Clinton that China will remain a “reliable supplier” of rare earths, which are needed to produce items such as cell phones, missiles and solar energy panels, the U.S. official said.
Clinton said Yang told her that “China has no intention of withholding these materials from the market.”
“While we’re pleased by the clarification received from the Chinese government,” Clinton said, “we still think the world as a whole needs to find alternatives” to China as a supplier of the minerals.
China began curtailing shipments to the United States and Europe of the minerals after the dispute with Japan and a trade investigation by the Obama administration. Then last week, without explanation, Chinese officials said the shipments would resume.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee of The Associated Press; by Daniel Ten Kate, Nicole Gaouette, Bomi Lim and Giang Nguyen of Bloomberg News; by John Pomfret of The Washington Post; and by Mark Landler of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/31/2010