An Affront to Tradition

The Bush Administration seems determined to disgrace itself in the conduct of Sino-American relations.

In the immediate aftermath of last June’s massacre of peaceful student demonstrators in and around Beijing’s Tian An Men Square, the President adopted a policy that was both principled and prudent. As a former U.S. Ambassador to China, Bush understood that a total break in relations would serve no one’s interests. But, he argued, “It is very important that the Chinese leaders know it’s not going to be business as usual.” To that end, the Administration undertook a diminution of diplomatic contacts, froze various bilateral economic programs and held up sales of $600 million in U.S. military equipment marked for China. Because these initiatives were coordinated with Japan and the European allies, Beijing found itself more isolated than its wizened autocrats ever could have anticipated.

Unfortunately, however, the Administration has taken a series of steps calculated to undercut its own successful policy: It has warmed diplomatic contacts to virtually normal levels; it has allowed sales of military hardware to proceed. Most recently--and most distressingly--it has intervened to block congressional passage of a bill that would allow 32,000 Chinese students, many of them active in the movement for democratic reform, to remain in this country after they complete their studies.

The proposal, which passed both the Senate and House in slightly different forms last summer, is at present before a conference committee for reconciliation. Final passage seemed assured until the Administration reversed its position and actively began to lobby for the bill’s defeat. State Department officials now argue that enactment of the measure would threaten Sino-American educational exchange programs.

But, as Times writer Jim Mann reported Thursday, the students almost certainly face persecution and reprisals if they are compelled to return home. The threat of such forced repatriation also virtually guarantees the end of the struggle for democratic reform by young Chinese in exile here.

“If we do not get any protection from the United States government and Congress, the result will be that the Chinese democracy movement in this country will perish,” Luo Zhexi, chairman of the Harvard University Chinese Students Assn. told Mann this week.

Chinese officials, who already have terminated their participation in the Fulbright program of scholarly exchange, say that if Congress allows the students to remain in this country, exchanges at the university-level will be threatened, too. The Chinese government justifies its position by claiming that since it supports the scholars and students financially, it has a right to demand they return.

Neither contention ought to be given any consideration by U.S. lawmakers. One is merely bluster; the other is simply false.

The 40,000 Chinese students in the United States--about 8,000 are supported solely by their families--constitute the largest group of foreign students in this country. Many, in fact, are the children of high-level Chinese Communist Party cadres. They are here, at least in part, because no other advanced nation’s university system could absorb them in such numbers.

And--Beijing’s insistence notwithstanding--the overwhelming majority are supported neither by the Chinese nor the American government but by the U.S. school that they attend. For that reason, the pressure and espionage Chinese officials continue to direct against them are unacceptable abuses of the American people’s generous hospitality.

More to the point, it is shockingly unworthy for the government of the United States to argue that young men and women who have spoken for peaceful democratic change should now be unwillingly returned to the custody of a regime that maintains its hold on power by the murder of its own people. Such an appalling step would not only betray these courageous young Chinese but also affront the historic American tradition that this country is an inviolable refuge for those whose only crime is to pursue the “inalienable” rights derived from “self-evident” truth.

Because it denies that truth, the course being urged on Congress by the Administration is not realistic but cynical.