It’s Not Just California That Clinton Forgot

Was it something we said? Up until November, if memory serves, President Clinton was virtually a weekly commuter to the Western states. Since then, he hasn’t visited with us Californians even once. Sniff. More seriously, I just hope he doesn’t lose touch. We Westerners are starting to develop serious jitters over U.S. policy toward Asia. One sensed this from the discussion at a recent session of the West Coast-based Pacific Council on International Policy.

I wish the president could have been a fly on the wall to hear these business people, public officials, academics and international bankers talk about China, Hong Kong, Burma and Japan. This group was concerned not just about its Asian investment portfolios or its research grants--though there is that. They are sincerely worried about America’s straying off the smart course in Asia because of know-nothing domestic pressures, vested interest lobbies and an increasingly weaker presidency.

At the meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, many openly doubted that U.S.-Sino relations can improve after the July 1 return of Hong Kong to the Chinese. Pacific Council guest speaker Yun-han Chu, who is program director of the Institute for National Policy Research in Taiwan (not exactly a hotbed of pro-Beijing sentiment), worried about the predictably intense media scrutiny: “There are 7,000 journalists coming to cover the handover. If there are 35 anti-Beijing demonstrators, there will be 300 cameras. Yes, there are very worrisome developments in free speech, for sure. But that is not the whole picture.”

Panelist Daniel Lynch, a scholar from the University of Michigan, suggests that Clinton’s accommodationist instincts will be frustrated by growing public and media hostility toward China: “Western public opinion will actually contribute to growing tensions in Asia. Every action the Chinese government takes is viewed with suspicion. There’s almost nothing the Chinese government can do to prevent its actions from being viewed in the worst possible light in the West and the U.S.”

Returning from a recent trip to Asia, council member Lloyd Armstrong Jr., provost of the University of Southern California, agreed: “The question I got at almost every stop was: Is the U.S. going to screw this whole thing up by overreacting and starting another Cold War?”

Council members also wanted to know why America and Japan must engage in yet another unseemly transoceanic shouting match over the bilateral trade imbalance. After all, the current one, though a record dollar amount, represents a far smaller part of the overall U.S. economic pie than past ones. But why let facts get in the way of playing to the domestic grandstand, right? Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Clinton, for all diplomatic appearances, managed all appropriate smiles at their get-together in Washington last week. This happened despite the disclosure earlier in the week that Clinton had sent a personal letter to Hashimoto raising anew the trade deficit issue. Remarkably bad form, I’d say, on the eve of a summit with an important ally. But Hashimoto showed no public irritation. “Maybe the letter somehow never got to the prime minister’s in box before he left Tokyo for Washington,” suggested one Japanese diplomat, winking. Diplomacy aside, with Japan still reeling from a stock market crash, overvalued real estate and a troubled yen, is this the time to rehash the old trade deficit wars?

I had thought maybe there’d be some warm support among the council members for Washington’s announcement last week that further U.S. investment in Burma (Myanmar) would be banned. Pacific Council members were leery of publicly criticizing the move for fear of creating the impression they condone the truly hideous military junta, known as SLORC (the State Law and Order Restoration Council). Still, the jaded sense is that Clinton had to throw domestic human rights groups the Burma bone in exchange for some space to continue to try to improve relations with also-repressive China. Does anyone actually believe that the ban will humble SLORC? For one thing, other Asian nations, including our allies and friends, resent these kinds of heavy-handed, unilateral American actions and believe that over the long run it is better to try to tame the SLORC hoods within the increasingly influential Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations. Now, key ASEAN members are really determined to induct Myanmar into full membership later this year. Our Asian friends also note, politely of course, that the most immediate effect of the ban is to help SLORC. As London’s Financial Times reported last week, alert U.S. companies, expecting the anti-SLORC pressure to get to Clinton, managed to wrap up $339 million in new investment deals in February to beat the ban’s clock. Compare this amount to the $21.4 million agreed to in all of 1995 and 1996 combined.

Clinton scarfed up California’s 54 electoral votes last November, as well as 34 more from other Western states. I wish now that he would fully address the growing anxieties out West about our policies in Asia. He needs to take care of the nation’s business as an above-the-fray president and steer clear of domestic pandering. He also needs to escape that Beltway penitentiary, because if he doesn’t believe there’s a growing problem out West, he should come out here and ask around.