Former Envoy to China Blasts Bush Initiative

Winston Lord, a career diplomat who served as President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to China, today denounced President Bush’s decision to send emissaries to Beijing as a “severely misguided” step that will make the United States appear weak to China’s leaders.

“One does not shore up the long-term foundations for Sino-American relations by appearing weak to China’s leaders and callous to the Chinese and American people,” Lord said in a signed column in today’s Washington Post.

“One does not earn respect abroad by reversing field within months and practicing double standards,” he said.

Lord’s piece was written before the White House’s disclosure Monday that Brent Scowcroft, Bush’s national security adviser, and Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the deputy secretary of state, secretly visited Beijing on Bush’s orders in July.

Scowcroft and Eagleburger also visited China earlier this month. The White House announced that visit after they arrived in Beijing.

Lord said in seeking improved ties with China the Administration forfeited the right to censure it on moral grounds. “But even on its own terms the Scowcroft mission was severely misguided,” he said, arguing it undermined China’s “closet moderates.”

“Far from strengthening their hand, the Administration has robbed them of the argument that Chinese repression and xenophobia entail costs,” he wrote. “Japan, Europe and others will feel free to follow the Scowcroft trail.”

The former ambassador said that while censure might not influence China’s hard-line leaders, “international acquiescence” in the Tian An Men Square shootings “surely reinforces their view that crushing their populace elicits only fleeting outcries, no lasting repercussions.”