A Victory of Reason Over Emotion : China: A veto override would indeed have rebuked Bush and bashed Beijing. And it would have hurt the wrong people.

Despite widespread misgivings, the Senate’s failure to override President Bush’s veto of the Pelosi bill, which protects Chinese students from deportation, represents a victory of reason over emotion. Although the protection provided in the bill is both necessary and proper, the legislation itself is not. An existing presidential order adequately shields the 40,000 Chinese students here from the possibility of forced deportation. A congressional override would have thus been redundant; beyond that, it would have punished the wrong people and sent the wrong message.

Rhetorical flourishes aside, there is little real difference between the bill, sponsored by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), and an executive order issued by the White House last December. Among other provisions, the order grants an irrevocable four-year waiver of residency requirements for Chinese students residing here and bans deportation proceedings against Chinese citizens whose visas have expired.

Why, then, did Congress make such a fuss? In large measure, it reflects a visceral response to the brutality of last June’s Tian An Men Square crackdown and a rebuke to Bush, whose low-key reaction to the crackdown gave an impression of presidential weakness. Beijing added to the problem by brazenly denying that any massacre of unarmed civilians had occurred. Adding insult to injury, Chinese leaders accused the United States of fomenting “counterrevolutionary rebellion” in China. If the United States wanted to improve relations, Beijing warned, it was up to Washington to make the first move.

In an effort to do just that, Bush last month took a calculated gamble, dispatching National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to Beijing to partially lift U.S. sanctions, presumably in exchange for certain reciprocal Chinese good-faith gestures. Among the anticipated Chinese concessions were: a full accounting of civilian casualties from the June crackdown; a halt to the campaign of suppression against pro-democracy activists; a lifting of martial law; and a guarantee of safe conduct abroad for dissident Fang Lizhi.

The President’s timing could not have been worse. In mid-December, a massive popular uprising, triggered by a brutal, Tian An Men-like massacre, toppled Romania’s Communist regime. Visibly stunned, China’s leaders erected a wall of defiance to shield them from the fallout of that upheaval. With Beijing circling its wagons, no concessions to the U.S. President were forthcoming--placing Bush in the awkward position of appearing to have given up something for nothing.

With Congress in recess, the President’s critics skewered him for “kowtowing to the butchers of Beijing.” Bush’s cause was further damaged by news clips showing a smiling Scowcroft exchanging pleasantries with Chinese leaders. To make matters worse, it was acknowledged that Bush had violated his own ban on high-level contacts with China by dispatching Scowcroft on a top-secret Beijing mission as early as last July. Worst still, Secretary of State James A. Baker III was caught lying about Scowcroft’s earlier visit.

Realizing that Bush faced an imminent legislative rebuke, Beijing belatedly offered a good-will gesture. On Jan. 10, martial law was lifted, and 573 political prisoners were freed. The moves were too little, too late, however. Congress had already circled its own wagons. A showdown was imminent; the Pelosi bill merely provided the battleground.

For all its obvious emotional appeal, an override of Bush’s veto would have done significant damage to our long-term interests. Aside from its redundancy, it would have provoked Beijing into terminating educational exchanges with the States. Thousands of Chinese students and scholars slated to come to here this year would have had their travel permits revoked.

These people represent China’s best hope for an eventual recovery from the tragedy of Tian An Men. It would have been ironic indeed if Congress, in its desire to punish Beijing’s aging autocrats and rebuke Bush, had wound up punishing instead China’s long-suffering intellectuals. Yet that would have been the principal outcome of an override.

While the urge to bash China is understandable, the Pelosi override was bad policy. At best, it would have played into the hands of China’s hard-line extremists; at worst, it would have opened the floodgates of mutual reprisal and recrimination. Neither outcome was in our best interest. The President’s veto, though highly unpopular, was thus appropriate.