Murdoch Lets Us See a Real China Dealer

The Chinese Reds are coming! The Chinese Reds are coming! That’s been the rallying cry of congressional Republicans for months as they attempted to stick President Clinton with the crime of selling out the White House to Asian campaign contributors purportedly linked to Beijing’s communist government. It’s never stuck.

One difficulty with this wild claim is that, despite spending $4 million in taxpayers’ money on a far-ranging investigation, they never came up with any proof. Another is that the label “Chinese Reds” doesn’t scare the way it used to in the Cold War’s heyday. Now “Chinese Reds” sounds like yet another baseball team that Rupert Murdoch might buy.

Which is just the point. When Murdoch and a Who’s Who of American capitalists--the elites of Boeing, Ford, Westinghouse, General Electric, etc.--form an eager advance squad for Beijing’s interests, why would the Chinese government waste money on buying influence they get for free? Heck, only last month, Murdoch killed a book that his HarperCollins publishing house was contracted to publish by Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last British governor. Murdoch said the Chinese didn’t have to tell him to kill the book since he shared their contempt for Patten’s efforts to bring democracy to China. “I think he made a bit of a fool of himself out there after suddenly discovering democracy at the end of a 100-year rule.”

Murdoch’s pandering to Beijing’s suppression of democracy is nothing new; he previously banned the BBC from his satellite TV broadcasts to China because Beijing judged BBC news reports to be too favorable to Chinese dissidents. Murdoch’s ambitious and lucrative satellite and television business in China is dependent on licenses issued by Beijing.

In his eagerness to please Beijing, Murdoch had even arranged for HarperCollins to publish a painfully flattering biography of Deng Xiaoping by Deng’s daughter before the late leader’s death. To be fair, it should be noted that the literary merits of the Deng book probably exceeded those of House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s collected wisdom, for which Murdoch had offered a $4.5-million advance.

Murdoch’s contributions to the Republican Party did not stop there, and in the two years preceding the 1996 election, he donated $744,700 to the GOP, according to Common Cause. By contrast, the Walt Disney Co., which also has major investments in China, contributed $997,050 to Democrats and $296,450 to Republicans.

The venerable Economist of London last week chided Murdoch for being overly fawning in anticipating Beijing’s displeasure over the Patten book. The magazine, which has championed free trade for more than a century, pointed out that Disney outlets are flourishing in China. The company is moving along with plans to open theme parks, a necessary addition to Chinese culture, unimpeded by the fact that Disney did not back down on its release of the pro-Tibet movie, “Kundun,” even when Beijing bristled.

But when it comes to all-important trade issues, including extension of most favored nation status, Beijing’s leaders can count on the interests of both Disney and Murdoch to parallel their own. And that influence is hardly to be measured solely by campaign contributions. Disney controls ABC and Murdoch the Fox network and more TV stations than anyone, as well as the leading right-wing tabloid, the New York Post, and the premier intellectual journal of the right, the Weekly Standard.

All of which makes a mockery of Republican attempts to link Asian contributors to a Beijing plot to take over American politics through Democratic Party contributions. It is of course racist as well as stupid to imply that anyone who has an Asian surname and has done business with China is somehow a regime puppet. It is also a denial of reality to suggest that Beijing doesn’t have all the influence in this country that it needs.

How else to explain that this huge communist country, which routinely jails priests, is treated as a favorable trading partner, while tiny communist Cuba, which welcomed the pope, is still on the Republican and Democratic enemies lists and its people continue to be subject to a cruel embargo that includes medicine?

The only hope for Fidel Castro is to split his island country into two free trade zones--a theme park and a baseball franchise--and take in Murdoch and Disney as partners. Meanwhile, the Republicans should stop complaining about undue Chinese influence, since it can only embarrass their best buddy, Rupert Murdoch.