The Folly of Bullying Beijing

On a recent visit to Beijing, I found improving Sino-American relations to be a key objective--perhaps the key foreign policy objective--of the post-Deng leadership. Meanwhile in the United States, the debate over China’s most-favored-nation trade status grows more venomous with each passing year. Some seek to punish China over human rights; others want to clip China’s wings; many are seeking to use the China issue to restructure America’s political parties. If they succeed, they will thrust the United States into political and economic war with China. Such a confrontation is not called for by any realistic assessment of the national interest.

The administration has shown statesmanship in resisting these pressures. But it has been extraordinarily timid in dealing with the demonization of China. It has basically accepted the objectives of its critics while asserting that it has a better way of achieving them. As a result, no positive agenda emerges.

The challenge is to impart to our China policy a strategic dimension capable of generating broad bipartisan support.

(I must inject a personal note. Many of us urging cooperation with China are being accused of doing so for commercial reasons. As chairman of an international consulting firm, I inevitably encounter clients who also do business in China, though they represent a very small part of our total income. Still, anyone who believes that my views are for sale and who is prepared to ignore nearly 40 years of my published views, long before any business was done in China by anybody, should stop reading now.)

The post-Cold War world obliges us to conduct two different types of foreign policy simultaneously. In the North Atlantic and the Western Hemisphere, we are dealing with pluralistic democracies practicing market economics. In these regions, U.S. policy can be based on a sense of community and shared moral values.

It is different in Asia. There, nations consider each other, at least in part, as strategic rivals. No integrating institutions exist. In Asia, at least for the next generation, peace will require the conscious and deliberate managing of a balance of power, a uncomfortable task for the United States.

That alone should cause the United States to be wary of unnecessarily antagonizing China. If we cannot cooperate with China, our options will shrink; the bargaining position of all other players in the region will improve. Any opponent of the United States will automatically find support in Beijing.

Before embarking on so risky and irrevocable a course, it’s necessary to define the challenge posed by China. China’s economic growth, while spectacular, starts from the base of a far lower gross national product than ours. In absolute numbers, even if China continues to grow at a rate of 10% indefinitely, it will, for the foreseeable future, barely match America’s absolute growth of 2.5% to 3%. China is no military colossus bestriding Asia, either. While the precise amount China spends on its military is unclear, most experts believe it represents, at most, a tenth of our spending.

Moreover, China faces strong neighbors. For at least the next decade, Japan will have a more formidable military establishment. Nor can planners in Beijing ignore the military capacities of India, Korea, Russia, Vietnam or Taiwan.

Accordingly, the United States should not sacrifice one of its chief diplomatic assets--that we are, or could be, closer to each of the contenders in Asia than they are to one another. Indeed, we are in a position to advance our interests and protect the balance of power from a position of flexibility. In the months ahead, an exceptional opportunity exists for exploring the prospects of coexistence in the preparations for the Clinton-Jiang summit and at the summit itself.

For us, the key issues are trade, nonproliferation and human rights. Success in the first two cases depends on establishing equitable rules for trade and enforceable rules for preventing the spread of nuclear and missile technology. This would enable China to enter the World Trade Organization and to address U.S. concerns about the spread of advanced technology.

Human rights have a legitimate, indeed inevitable, place on the Sino-American agenda. Yet, the issue should be brought into a proper relationship with other objectives in our relations with China and with respect for China’s many great historical achievements. In trying to encourage the pace of evolution, it is only fair to recognize that the system is much less rigid than when I first encountered it, though it retains its uncompromising insistence on a monopoly of power.

For China, the potential flash points are Hong Kong and Taiwan. I take seriously the Chinese leaders’ expressed commitment to Hong Kong’s autonomy, above all, because it is so overwhelmingly in their self-interest. Even with the best of intentions, there are, however, some intangibles that can only be tested by the passage of time: a) How will Chinese officials daily react to a more open system? b) Will the authorities and the opponents of the new institutions muster the self-restraint needed to operate Hong Kong’s autonomous system without resorting to violence? c) Will Taiwan see the practice of autonomy in Hong Kong as a challenge or as an opportunity?

On these issues, the United States can play a helpful role so long as it proceeds with some sensitivity. China has been told insistently by both administration officials and members of Congress that major breaches of the agreement will have a disastrous impact on U.S. public opinion. The point has been made.

All sides have an interest in maintaining and reaffirming the principles of the Shanghai communique. The United States must stick to the spirit of the one-China policy; China must understand that America is serious about our interest in a peaceful solution; and Taiwan must recognize that America’s interest in a peaceful solution does not give Taiwan license to rekindle the Chinese civil war.

The forthcoming exchange of visits between Presidents Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin must not be treated as public-relations exercises. Sino-American relations will either improve dramatically or decline dramatically.

Unless carefully and thoughtfully prepared, these meetings could, in the present atmosphere, backfire. Expectations must be realistic on both sides. And domestic pressure groups must temper their often valid concerns with an equal concern for the possibly unintended consequences of their actions. For what is at stake may be the prospects of peace in the next century.