(IPS) President George W Bush's visit to Beijing in February initially seemed to have been hastily announced and prepared to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Richard Nixon's historic visit to the country, but recent developments show that Beijing has a carefully scripted agenda for the summit.

In a matter of days since the announcement of Feb 21-22 visit by the US president, Beijing has released a Tibetan scholar who has served six and a half years out of an 18-year prison sentence, launched a fresh attack on its homegrown separatist groups and drawn tacit applause from Washington for avoiding another spy row with potentially explosive consequences for both sides.

Observers believe that by honouring the 30th anniversary of Nixon's groundbreaking trip to the then-reclusive communist nation with a series of political gestures, Beijing hopes to foster the newfound mutual trust between the two sides and achieve some major domestic gains.

Whether it orchestrated the sensational disclosure that a US-made plane for President Jiang Zemin was found to have been bugged with more than 20 devices or not, Beijing reacted gracefully to ease the possibility of another spy row between China and the United States.

Instead of letting the bugging of Chinese presidential jet become an issue of public outrage, Beijing kept the incident out of the state-owned print and broadcast media. On Tuesday, a foreign ministry spokesman brushed aside doubts that the incident might affect Bush's visit to China next month.

''I have heard about this but so far I have no knowledge of it and I don't see any impact of this event on other issues,'' Sun Yuxi told foreign media at a regular press briefing here.

Change of tune

To capitalise on Beijing's graceful handling of such an explosive issue, Sun promptly reminded everyone that ''China is a peace-loving country and constitutes no threat to anyone, so it is of no use to bug China.''

This diplomatic turn of events is in stark contrast to Beijing's reaction to the April 2001 collision between a Chinese fighter jet and a US reconnaissance plane off the Chinese coast.

Then, public outrage overtook foreign policy thinking and forced Beijing to take a harder line against the United States without any evident gain. Many among the Chinese public think that America fears China's rising power, and thus regard the United States with hostility.

While foreign media reports suggest that Jiang is outraged at US attempts at spying, the fact is that the incident has been kept under wraps since September. This leads to a conclusion that if Jiang protests about this to Bush in person, the spy plane issue would be used to force a much stronger point about US surveillance activities along the Chinese coast.

American EP-3 spy planes are reported to continue routine missions of surveillance along China's south and east coasts, despite the collision off Hainan island in April that led to the death of a Chinese pilot and a bitter diplomatic standoff.

In the wake of Sept 11 terror attacks on the Untied States, Beijing and Washington have forged a fragile alliance based on fighting the common foe of terrorism.

But as the military effort in Afghanistan draws to an end and old contentious issues are likely to divide Beijing and Washington again, China is seen as taking the initiative in creating a momentum for the further improvement of ties.

Surprise parole

Last weekend, Beijing unexpectedly released Tibetan music scholar Ngawang Choepel, who had served six and a half years of an 18-year jail term for spying, on medical parole. He was flown to the United States.

Various US diplomats, members of the US congress and a range of international organisations have sought his release for years.

Speaking from Hong Kong, US ambassador Clark Randt welcomed the release and said President Bush had ''made abundantly clear'' to Jiang when they met during the Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Shanghai in October the importance of ''his religious faith and human rights''.

According to human rights organisations, the musicologist is the first Tibetan prisoner released into US custody.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala, India said in a statement that the release was ''well-timed'' to coincide with Bush's visit, and to avert international criticism during the UnitedNations Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva in March.

Muslim militants

In another move, scripted to win Washington's backing for China's fight against separatism in the western province of Xinjiang, Beijing this week released a lengthy report linking its own militant Muslim separatists to Afghanistan-based extremism.

In the report issued by the information office of the State Council, Beijing alleged that three Xinjiang-based Muslim groups were receiving money, training and weapons from Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and the Taliban militia.

Although Washington has so far declined to back China's crackdown on Muslim separatists in Xinjiang, the timing of the report comes at a moment when the United States is considering broadening the focus of its global 'fight against terror'.

There should be ''no double standards'' in the global fight against terror is the message Beijing is preparing to convey during the US president's visit next month.

It remains to be seen though whether this flurry of diplomatic activities would result in a memorable summit between the leaders of the world's only superpower and the world's most populous nation.

On Feb 21, 1972, Nixon marked a new era in China's relations with the outside world when he held meetings with the late chairman Mao Zedong. At the time, both nations feared Soviet expansion, while China was in economic disarray and in the clutches of the disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

Nixon's rapprochement with Beijing led to a US-China alliance aimed at the Soviet Union, while helping establish the bedrock for China's economic boom.