TAIPEI, TAIWAN, FEB. 23 -- Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui urged the Clinton administration today to use its leverage with China and to voice more concern to Beijing about the heightened tension in the Taiwan Strait, as 150,000 Chinese troops were poised to begin military exercises about 100 miles away.
"The maintenance of good relations between Washington and Beijing will be helpful to Asia," Lee said at a 90-minute news conference at the presidential palace. "The United States could, from its own standpoint and for stability and peace in Asia, engage in more frequent contacts and discussions with the Chinese mainland. . . . I hope the United States will show greater concern for this issue for the sake of Asian stability."
Lee's remarks on the eve of the launch of campaigning for the March 23 presidential election seemed aimed at sending two signals to China's Communist leadership: Taiwan wants to improve the tense relationship with its giant neighbor and has no desire to seek full independence from China, but it will not be intimidated by China's behavior and can defend itself if attacked.
"We would like to have the two sides cooperating for mutual benefit," Lee said. He noted later that Taiwan's "armed forces are quite well prepared. We can have 100 years without war, but we cannot go a single day without preparation for military action."
He said Taiwan's military remained ready to meet any threat "every minute, every second."
As Lee spoke, Taiwan's media were reporting new details of a large-scale Chinese troop buildup across the strait in southeastern Fujian Province, presaging massive military exercises apparently aimed at intimidating Taiwanese in advance of next month's elections.
News reports here, quoting Defense Ministry sources, said China had amassed about 150,000 troops in Fujian from seven divisions, including an airborne division from central Hubei Province. One report said China had moved some 220 fighter jets to Fujian.
Taiwanese media reported the exercises would begin either next week or in early March.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry has urged China to refrain from trying to use military might to intimidate Taiwan.
China staged four sets of exercises in the strait over the last year, including some missile firings, in an apparent attempt to weaken support for Lee and to persuade Taiwanese voters last December not to support candidates favoring independence for the island. Many analysts say China's tactics had little effect, since Taiwan's pro-independence party received close to the share of votes that surveys here had predicted. At the same time, however, the election saw the rise of a small, new party of more hard-line nationalists committed to closer ties with China.
Lee said he believed China's warlike tone in recent weeks arose from a fear of the island's nascent democracy, which he said makes reunification with China more distant, unless the Communist Party regime in Beijing allows more freedom. China's Communists, he said, are "very much afraid of the democratization process that has been going on here in Taiwan."
China also has been afraid Taiwan is moving toward a formal break from Beijing -- a move that Beijing consistently has said would prompt an immediate military response. But Lee tried to assuage those fears, saying he remains committed to reunification as the "ultimate goal" -- but only after China develops "freedom and democracy, equitable distribution of wealth and social justice."
Lee said today that he never anticipated that "the Chinese Communists would react so vehemently" after he made his much-publicized trip to the United States last June to attend his college reunion at Cornell University. China's leaders view Taiwan as a renegade province, and they interpreted the U.S. visit as yet another sign that Taiwan is moving toward outright independence.
Lee said, however, that if he is reelected next month, he intends to continue his efforts to break Taiwan's international isolation and raise its global profile, even at the risk of further antagonizing China.
"If I can go out and be of help to the nation, then maybe I'll be going out of the country" on future trips, Lee said. "We should not be thinking too much about what the Chinese Communists would be thinking." CAPTION: President Lee says he was surprised by Beijing's anger over his U.S. trip.
