Delusions Underpin Clinton’s Efforts to End Political Repression in China

American policy toward ending repression in China is driven by a pair of delusions. They are at the root of virtually all of the Clinton Administration’s actions toward China. They are repeated, both to the American public and at internal Administration meetings, to the point that they become a sort of mantra.

The first of these delusions is that a process the Administration grandly calls “engagement”--that is, a bunch of meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials--will by itself change Chinese behavior.

The second is that the United States can succeed in fostering political change in China’s Leninist system by educating China about “the rule of law.”

The inadequacy of the U.S. policy was laid bare last week by the Chinese leadership’s decision to charge Wei Jingsheng, its most determined critic, with attempting to “overthrow” the Chinese government. Wei, China’s leading dissident, began preaching the virtues of democracy at just the time Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978.

Wei has been in jail virtually ever since. He was sentenced to 15 years as a “counterrevolutionary” in 1979. Two years ago, he was released for a few months while China was trying unsuccessfully to land the rights to host the Olympic Games in Beijing. He was detained once again in early 1994, and until last week had been held without charge for 20 months.

The mere notion that Wei, an individual with no weaponry and precious little organization, could overthrow the Chinese regime, which has an army of 3 million and a Communist Party membership of well over 40 million, is as revealing as it is ludicrous.

It demonstrates the depth of the Chinese government’s worries about the stability of the country. It also suggests that the Chinese leadership is now preparing the way for Deng’s death, serving notice to the Chinese people that dissent and street demonstrations will not be tolerated at a time of political uncertainty.

Since the spring of 1994, the Clinton Administration has been as quiet as possible about Wei. The President doesn’t mention his name in public, and neither do other Administration officials.

After the meeting between Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin in New York City last month, State Department officials murmured that Clinton had raised a couple of human rights cases with Jiang. They went through verbal contortions to avoid giving specifics, apparently on the theory that they would get more results that way from the Chinese. But in Wei’s case, that has turned out not to be true.

Contrast the Clinton Administration’s silence about Wei with past administrations’ handling of cases involving Soviet dissidents. President Jimmy Carter wrote Andrei Sakharov a letter when the Soviet dissident was in exile. President Ronald Reagan spoke out often, declaring that the United States would not ignore “the plight of Andrei Sakharov, Yelena Bonner, Anatoly Shcharansky, Yuri Orlov and so many others. The persecution of these courageous, noble people weighs very heavily on our hearts.”

Over and over again, the Clinton Administration has said its approach toward China is one of “engagement.” But that approach is rarely examined or criticized.

There are two fundamental problems with the Administration’s belief in “engagement.” The first is that it involves only a process--that is, meetings, talks, visits--and doesn’t say anything about results. Engagement means that top-level Administration officials get to travel to China or to welcome Chinese visitors in this country. And Wei Jingsheng stays in jail.

Engagement doesn’t change anything in China today, and there is precious little reason to think it will have much impact in the future.

Indeed, the whole idea that Chinese officials--who are at least as firm in their own convictions as Americans are in theirs--will be changed through these meetings is a little patronizing. Who’s really engaging whom here?

The second problem with the existing effort to “engage” China is that it unintentionally gives the leadership in Beijing a bargaining chip. Often, the Clinton Administration pursues visits and dialogues with China so avidly that the Chinese leadership tries to extract favors from the United States in exchange for agreeing to the visits. We won’t talk with you, China says, unless you make some concessions to us.

A classic case in point is the Administration’s continuing effort to prompt China into a “human rights dialogue.” Such a dialogue--a meeting and exchange of views about human rights by U.S. and Chinese officials--is viewed as important enough that top Administration officials have been working on it for most of the past year.

In fact, over the past four years, these “dialogues” have been held on at least three occasions, once in the last days of the George Bush Administration and twice under Clinton. Each time, China has suspended the talks and then sought some new change in U.S. behavior to get them started again.

At the moment, China is suggesting that the dialogue may be renewed if the Clinton Administration will only back off from supporting a U.N. resolution criticizing China’s human rights record.

To its credit, the Administration has not agreed to this particular deal. But China’s request shows the pitfalls of seeking mere dialogue rather than tangible results.

Increasingly, the Administration has been focusing on the “rule of law” as another approach it hopes might bring long-term political change in China. The theory seems to be that if you bring enough Chinese lawyers and judges to this country, or dispatch enough U.S. law professors to China, the nature of China’s political system will eventually change by osmosis.

Chinese leaders have been encouraging Americans to think this approach will help.

“I think if we’re really interested in human rights, what as a nation we ought to do is help the Chinese in the evolution of an independent judicial system and one that has due process of law,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is becoming the Chinese government’s most sympathetic friend and defender on Capitol Hill. “The Chinese have indicated an interest in pursuing that course.”

But Beijing’s own actions, both good and bad, show the limits of this approach. Wei was detained without charges, incommunicado, in violation of China’s own criminal laws, for more than a year and a half. That’s not the rule of law. When China decided to release Chinese American activist Harry Wu in the summer, it did so only a couple of days before the start of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, after Feinstein carried an appeal from Clinton to President Jiang. That doesn’t look like an independent judiciary. As usual, China’s ruling Communist Party leadership made the decision, then told the courts what to do and when to do it.

Moreover, seeking the “rule of law” in China does not end repression. Laws themselves can be repressive. China’s constitution formally guarantees that the Communist Party will rule the country. China’s criminal law outlaws behavior that the regime considers “counterrevolutionary.” That’s why Wei was jailed in the first place.

All the problems and limitations in the Clinton Administration’s approach are encapsulated by one of its current initiatives toward China.

This fall, the Administration has been working up an invitation to Chinese Justice Minister Xiao Yang, who is responsible for China’s prison system, to visit Washington. State Department officials persuaded Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and her aides to invite Xiao, a mid-level Communist Party official, in part because his visit would foster the rule of law in China. U.S. officials are waiting to see whether the justice minister will accept the invitation.

Perhaps, as Administration officials were hoping last week, Wei may be set free or expelled from China by the time Xiao arrives here. If not, the Administration will find itself in an awkward position.

Wei will still be in prison. And Xiao, the man who is in charge of Wei’s jailers, may be escorted by the Clinton Administration down Pennsylvania Avenue into the great Hall of Justice.

The International Outlook column appears here every other Monday.