Albright’s Charisma On Hold in Asia

After more than a year, the puzzle is still unsolved: Will Secretary of State Madeleine Albright take up, in a serious way, the cause of democracy in Asia, or will she just go through the motions?

For that matter, is the secretary of State ever going to become the dominant figure in the Clinton administration’s Asia policy, or will she continue to let others take the lead in dealing with the world’s most populous continent?

Albright may be the most charismatic and endearing figure within the administration’s foreign policy establishment. Yet, so far, she has devoted most of her energies to Europe and the Middle East and has left little imprint on Asia.

Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and his deputy, Lawrence Summers, have become the point men in dealing with Japan and the Asian economic crisis, while National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger has become the preeminent figure in dealing with China.

The joke in Washington is that Albright’s map of Asia has Myanmar at its center. Myanmar is the one Asian nation where the secretary of State has taken an active policy role by challenging a repressive government. And even there, she may not succeed: Pressures are now building in the U.S. business community and in Congress to ease the economic sanctions on Myanmar’s military regime.

Albright just spent most of the past week in Asia. She came, she saw, she listened, and she tried out a few ideas. Yet her trip was noteworthy for its caution and restraint.

There was one moment during her visit when the secretary of State showed a flash of the eloquence and passion of which she is capable--but the issue involved was Europe, not Asia. On the day the Senate ratified the expansion of NATO, Albright issued a ringing statement that spoke repeatedly of the value of freedom.

“Now we can be that much more confident that peace and freedom will endure,” Albright said. “For me, it is also a moment of injustice undone, of promises kept, and of a unified Europe begun.”

The statement was all the more striking because words such as freedom and injustice seemed much harder to come by when Albright dealt with Asia.

To be sure, she dutifully praised the value of democracy in remote Mongolia and in South Korea under President Kim Dae Jung. In Tokyo, she offered a few choice words in favor of maintaining economic sanctions against the Myanmar regime, which is beginning to get some new money and help from Japan.

In Beijing, however, Albright seemed tongue-tied. Never did she utter anything as critical of China as President Clinton’s memorable riposte to President Jiang Zemin last October that the Chinese regime is “on the wrong side of history.”

Instead, Albright embraced the administration’s buzzwords and rationalizations in dealing with China. The latest catch phrase is to emphasize the “rule of law.” Administration officials seem to have convinced themselves that instead of talking about the concepts of democracy and freedom, they can slowly change China’s political system by pressing for more laws, lawyers and judges.

There are several troubling aspects to this approach. For one thing, it may well turn out to be much better for American lawyers and corporations than it is for advancing the cause of political freedom in China.

Bigwigs from the American Bar Assn. will get to shuttle back and forth to China on junkets where they can have conferences with their Chinese counterparts. Eventually, perhaps, American corporations may even be able to get a fairer shake in Chinese courts whenever they have a commercial dispute. But it seems doubtful, at best, that the rule of law is going to succeed in challenging the Chinese Communist Party’s monopoly on political power in China. Indeed, most worrisome at all, the rule of law could easily be used to bolster the role of the party.

Imagine China becoming one gigantic, 1.3-billion people version of Singapore. There, foreign corporations enjoy the rule of law. Meanwhile, the legal system is used to challenge, harass and impose huge fines on those domestic critics who challenge the political leadership.

While Albright was in Asia, there was an excellent illustration of how the “rule of law” can be abused. In Indonesia, military officials announced that they were going to sue some of the protesters who have been challenging President Suharto’s regime.

The secretary of State seems to understand some of these dilemmas, but has not yet figured out how to resolve them. And it remains unclear how much she will try.

When Albright was first appointed secretary of State in late 1996, there was some rejoicing among human rights advocates and hand-wringing among some Asian governments. Albright, after all, seemed the administration’s staunchest champion of democratic values--a reflection of her experience as a refugee from Nazi and Soviet repression in Czechoslovakia. Would she, then, espouse the cause of political freedom in Asia?

Forget it, argued the skeptics. “Think of Brzezinski,” said one old hand.

Zbigniew Brzezinski--who served as President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor and for whom Albright once worked--often acted as though the need for freedom and democracy extended throughout Europe but not to East Asia.

The verdict is still out on whether Albright will recognize that in Asia, as in Europe, there are people who believe in political freedom.

Jim Mann’s column appears in this space every Wednesday.