The Year Since Tian An Men: President Beats a Retreat on Policy Toward Beijing : Foreign Policy: Bush has been obliged to take steps that have made impossible any true reconciliation between the two Chinese-U.S. governments.

China . . . has now seen just how easily we can be pushed around. The Chinese realize that we have given all and gained nothing. -- George Bush, Dec. 24, 1978

When George Bush wrote the above critique of American policy toward China, he was preparing to run for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination. He was also vying with Ronald Reagan for the support of the party’s conservative wing. Bush’s target was the Carter Administration, which had just agreed to recognize the communist regime in Beijing and to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. His line of political attack was to suggest that President Carter and the Democrats had not been tough enough in their dealings with Chinese leaders.

Ever since China’s bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Beijing on June 3-4, 1989, the shoe has been on the other foot. Throughout much of the past 12 months, President Bush has been subjected to intense political pressure as a result of his China policy, with domestic critics--including both Democratic Party leaders and some conservative Republicans--arguing, in one way or another, that Bush has been too weak in his dealings with Beijing. The President, it is being said, is giving too much to the Chinese leadership and not getting enough human-rights improvements in return. “The President embarked on an almost uninterrupted series of concessions and capitulations to the Chinese government,” the Democratic Policy Committee headed by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) recently asserted.

When one looks back on the year since the violence in Beijing, what seems striking indeed is how far Bush has reluctantly gone and how much he has been forced to yield ground on his China policy. From the first days after the massacre in Beijing, the President made it plain that he hoped to avoid taking far-reaching steps to retaliate against the Chinese leadership and that he hoped for an eventual restoration of the previously close ties between the two governments. “I don’t want to see a total break in this relationship,” he declared. “. . . This would be a bad time for the United States to withdraw and pull back and leave (the Chinese people) to the devices of a leadership that might crack down further.”

Yet again and again during the past year, in response to congressional pressure and American public opinion, Bush has been obliged to take concrete steps to demonstrate U.S. concern over Chinese human-rights abuses--steps that have, in the end, made impossible any true reconciliation between the two governments.

Each time Bush took strong action against China, it was in response to congressional pressure. Bush’s first moves--a ban on military sales to China and a freeze on visits between U.S. and Chinese military leaders--were announced June 5, 1989, the Monday following the massacre, at a hastily called news conference. The President was reacting to a weekend of demands from Capitol Hill for a tougher U.S. stance against Beijing than the initial White House statement deploring the violence.

At that time, Bush said he opposed further steps--like economic sanctions--against China. Less than three weeks later, when Secretary of State James A. Baker III was being pressed by Congress for additional measures, the Administration hurriedly announced a suspension of exchanges between high-ranking officials of the U.S. and Chinese governments and U.S. support for a suspension of World Bank loans to China. Late last year, the Bush Administration opposed and eventually vetoed legislation aimed at permitting Chinese students to stay on in the United States. Yet in response to this legislation, the President was forced to issue his own administrative order granting Chinese students the same protection Congress had been offering.

Chinese leaders seem to have realized they cannot really depend too much on Bush or his Administration to help them out. A series of secret documents ferreted out of the Chinese Embassy in Washington by a recent Chinese defector demonstrates that although the leadership in Beijing recognizes (and seeks to exploit) the divisions within the United States over China policy, it also knows the outlook is bleak. “We cannot expect that the relationship (with the United States) will improve in the future,” said the Chinese regime, according to the secret documents. “. . . The bottom line is that the ‘June 4’ event will not be disregarded (by the United States).” According to the documents, Chinese authorities believe that “Bush’s basic approach is: 1) maintain the status quo; 2) keep the pressure, and 3) leave some latitude.” The Chinese analysis seems a remarkably perceptive one.

Undoubtedly, the turning point for U.S.-China relations was the unsuccessful mission to Beijing last December by Bush’s top aides, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger. That trip had two apparent objectives. The first, as Scowcroft told Chinese leaders, was to bring “new impetus and vigor” into Sino-American relations through new initiatives on both sides. The second, as Bush Administration officials told reporters, was to prod or galvanize the American public into accepting a reconciliation with the leadership in Beijing.

But the trip failed to achieve both objectives. Bush and his top aides badly misjudged the political mood in this country. The public anger over the massacre had not subsided, and the Scowcroft-Eagleburger trip served only to increase criticism of Bush’s efforts to restore ties with the Chinese regime. Furthermore, the high-level trip failed to bring about the sort of concrete results-- such as the release of China’s leading dissident Fang Lizhi from his confinement inside the U.S. Embassy in Beijing--that would have enabled Bush to overcome his critics. Months later, Bush and his aides were obliged to acknowledge they had been “disappointed” by how little China had done after the Scowcroft trip.

The secret documents seem to indicate that the Chinese regime was disappointed by the Bush Administration, too. After China announced the lifting of martial law in Beijing last January (while carefully maintaining a heavy security presence in the city), Chinese authorities found, to their regret, that “the U.S. government did not respond strongly.”

Personal ties, such as Bush’s proclaimed familiarity with Chinese leaders, can only go so far. China’s careful cultivation of American dignitaries--such as former President Richard M. Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger--also has only limited value in influencing U.S. policy. At least with respect to certain crucial events--China’s use of force to crush the democracy demonstrators, for example--American foreign policy tends to reflect public opinion and, ultimately, the nation’s values. An American President, for all his powers, can’t do much that runs counter to those values.

Ten days ago, Bush felt obliged to defend, at a press conference, his decision to continue China’s most-favored-nation trading status. According the status is generally considered a matter of routine. More than 170 other nations have the trading privilege; China has had it for more than a decade. It has also benefited American companies. Yet the President’s expected action had to be delayed for two days while Bush consulted members of Congress and his political advisers reportedly scrutinized the details of the announcement, seeking to avoid political fallout.

One year ago, it would have been unimaginable that Bush would have to fight so hard merely to preserve such an elemental component of the U.S. relationship with China. But the impact of the violence in Beijing has turned out to be greater, and longer lasting, than he expected.