Straining U.S. Ties, China Backslides on Rights, Trade Reforms

Six months after President Clinton completed a spectacular summit with China’s rulers that included a first-ever televised debate with Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin over the pace of democratic reforms, Beijing and Washington are increasingly at odds over crucial differences of policy.

China has mounted an aggressive political crackdown that appears in stark defiance of American demands--and China’s own pledges--to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Since November, China has arrested about 30 political activists and detained scores of church leaders. In the last week alone, it imposed harsh prison sentences on three pro-democracy dissidents and issued tough rules threatening film directors, singers and computer software developers with life in prison if they “endanger national security.”

New Barriers Worsen Trade Surplus With U.S.

Beijing also has created new trade barriers that have worsened the estimated $60-billion-and-growing trade surplus with the United States and reduced China’s chances of joining the World Trade Organization next year, a major goal of U.S. policy.

Pentagon officials complain that recent efforts to cooperate with China’s military have been one-sided, with the United States giving far more than it gets. And some administration officials privately accuse China of doing too little to restrain its longtime ally, North Korea, from developing nuclear weapons.

Lastly, a classified report is due this week from a congressional committee investigating explosive allegations that U.S. satellite exports to China jeopardized American security by dramatically boosting China’s military and surveillance capabilities.

With unease from so many quarters, criticism is growing of White House attempts to “engage” rather than isolate Beijing. The policy helped normalize relations after the chill that followed the massacres of pro-democracy activists during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Now, the weakness of that policy has become more obvious.

“Engagement in all its aspects seems to be unraveling,” warned Ross H. Munro, director of Asian Studies at the Center for Security Studies, a Washington think tank. “There’s been a real turn in China both on the political and economic front.”

“Things have begun to fray across the board,” agreed Bates Gill, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. “There are pressures in both capitals to reevaluate the whole relationship.”

The Clinton administration has condemned the crackdown in China, but White House and State Department officials insisted last week that the overall relationship with the world’s most populous nation is firmly on track.

They cited such progress as China’s agreement to stop selling ballistic missiles and nuclear technology to Iran and Pakistan, cooperation between U.S. and Chinese law enforcement authorities, consultations on foreign policy in South Asia and the Korean peninsula, and other areas of mutual interest.

“If we inventory all aspects of the U.S.-China relationship, we see lots of things that are going pretty well,” said Susan Shirk, deputy assistant secretary of state for China policy. “ . . . Our perspectives aren’t always identical. But there’s remarkable overlap. And we try to build on that overlap to achieve our objectives.”

Kenneth Lieberthal, head of Asia policy at the National Security Council, said administration critics sometimes have unrealistic expectations.

“I sometimes see criticism along the lines of, ‘Gee, you said this would lead to democracy in China and it hasn’t,’ ” he said. “I don’t know anyone here who said it would lead to democracy in six months or two years.”

Lieberthal added, “That doesn’t mean we ignore these arrests. But it also doesn’t mean that because they arrest 10, 20 or 30 people that the whole relationship comes to a halt.”

The arrests and other attempts to stifle dissent in China have complicated the relationship, however.

In the most serious case, three prominent activists were given 11-, 12- and 13-year sentences last week after perfunctory trials. They were charged with “subverting state power” by trying to set up the first formal democratic opposition party since Communist rule began in 1949.

Beijing apparently intends to intensify the crackdown to avoid organized protests around several politically sensitive dates next year: the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests on June 4, the 50th birthday of Communist China on Oct. 1, the 80th anniversary of the May 4th Movement that established the tradition of Chinese student activism, and the return of the Portuguese colony of Macau next Dec. 20.

In two blunt speeches this month, Jiang vowed to crush any challenges to Communist rule. “Whenever any element that undermines stability raises its head, it must be resolutely nipped in the bud,” he said Wednesday, according to wire reports.

Human rights activists here are especially rankled because China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October, a move that Washington welcomed as proof of Beijing’s growing commitment to human rights principles.

“There is zero tolerance now for open opposition to government,” said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch/Asia. “The only question is how the administration will adjust policy in the wake of the failure of Clinton’s visit.”

Even before the trials, six senators and 53 House members signed a strongly worded letter to Clinton urging him to consider condemning China at the annual meeting in Geneva of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in March. Last year, the United States pointedly refrained from bringing such a resolution.

Congressional criticism is likely to increase next year when the administration seeks continued favored trading status for China. In addition, the State Department’s report on China next year undoubtedly will be harsh because of the crackdown.

“I think we’re in for a difficult road ahead,” said Robert Manning, head of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Beijing Reacting to Fear of Turmoil, Experts Say

But most experts say Beijing’s leaders simply are reacting to domestic concerns. China’s robust economy has slowed, and Chinese officials fear that China could follow other Asian nations into economic collapse, massive unemployment and civil turmoil.

Those pressures appear to be behind China’s recent reversal of key economic reforms.

The Clinton administration has tried for years to bring China into the World Trade Organization. That would commit the world’s eighth-largest trading nation to more open markets. Lieberthal emphasized that talks for China’s accession to WTO are continuing.

“I don’t think either side would characterize those negotiations as having failed,” he said. “We both hope we will get a satisfactory result next year.”

Other analysts say China has given up on the WTO.

In recent months, China has tightened foreign exchange controls, imposed new import quotas and price controls, curbed foreign investment in telecommunications, and pumped money into foundering state-run enterprises.

“China is less qualified today for membership in WTO than it was last year,” said Munro. “It is moving away from eligibility. And without integration of China into the world trading system, engagement becomes really hollow.”