President Bush Criticized on China

When President Bush announced immediately after Beijing’s massacre of pro-democracy students in Tian An Men Square that he would ban visits by high-ranking U.S. officials to China, he quoted a Chinese saying that the man who unravels the tie must be the tie maker himself. Apparently, he was determined to let Beijing take the first step in improving its relations with Washington.

But the Chinese communist leaders have always remained adamant. It is the President who has been softening his position all the way. In the Chinese eye, the Beijing trip by U.S. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger was a self-inflicted slap in the face on the part of the U.S. government (Part A, Dec. 10, 12). This flip-flop of U.S. policy will encourage Beijing’s leaders to stay their course, dampen the freedom aspirations of Chinese and East Europeans, and compromise the U.S. position in its future dealings with Beijing.

The President was right in his post-facto rationalization that “China is a billion-plus people. They have a strategic position in the world that remains important to us.” It is a pity that the President came to realize this fact so late. It now turns out that the man who made and then unraveled the tie was President George Bush.

THOMAS CHEN

Los Angeles