A Right Choice, Even if It Looks Wrong

Even after Beijing had tamped down last week’s many ugly anti-American street demonstrations, the undeniable fact remained that many Chinese on the mainland simply could not accept NATO’s devastation of their Belgrade embassy or the official explanation of the accident. And, in this, the Chinese are not alone. Even loyal ally Japan is arriving at the conclusion that the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia has gone on too long, is causing too much collateral civilian damage and hasn’t gotten us any closer to a satisfactory end result. So when Washington revealed that U.S. Ambassador to China James Sasser would be stepping down, as he had long planned, and making way for none other than a four-star admiral, Asians had to wonder: Had Uncle Sam suddenly metamorphized into some combination of the Ugly American and Dr. Strangelove?

What’s more, this nominee is no ordinary admiral. Joseph Prueher was the U.S. commander in charge of all U.S. Pacific forces in March 1996, when American ships were dispatched to the Taiwan Strait after China fired blank test missiles near Taiwan’s waters to try to influence the result of its elections. Beijing didn’t like that, and still doesn’t, one bit: Chinese mainlanders regard relations with Taiwan as a kind of family affair that the West should stay well clear of. Exclaimed an incredulous Hong Kong civic leader upon hearing this news: “They’re nominating the admiral that sent the carriers to the Taiwan Strait? That’ll be hard to explain to Beijing.”

Or maybe not.

Shortly after that Taiwan tension, Prueher pointedly donned a cap more Kissinger-ish than Strangelovean. With the Pentagon’s blessing, he began to reach out to his counterparts in the People’s Liberation Army, going to China many times to talk about strategy, technological capabilities, U.S. training philosophies and other military matters. The admiral’s goal was to have China understand U.S. military mettle and capabilities so that there could be no misunderstanding. Very quickly, Prueher became the best-known U.S. military man in elite Chinese circles. He won respect by listening to PLA military leaders, rather than lecturing to them. “The senior leadership is smart, pragmatic and patriotic,” he told me last year, after returning from one of those low-profile but pivotal trips. Prueher’s appeal to Beijing’s generals was that of a fellow military man who, like them, was not going to take any nonsense. But at the same time he recognized that China has its own national interests, is prepared to defend them and must be treated with respect.

It didn’t take long before Prueher was better known in the military and political elites of China than in America. Shanghai officials visiting the States recently responded with instant recognition when I mentioned his name. To the suggestion then that he might become the next American ambassador, one Chinese official remarked: “Sometimes military men understand the cruelty of war better than anyone. That can make them the best diplomats.”

Prueher’s charm offensive in China was matched by the efforts of the man he would replace, fellow Tennessean Sasser, exhausted after three years in the sensitive, enervating post. Sasser helped by working the phones and faxes on Prueher’s behalf to Washington from Beijing. Indeed, when the White House offered the job to bigger names, including former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), Prueher’s supporters, including aides to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, despaired. Here America had the best man for the job, and it looked like politics might deny him the job. But big name after big name said no.

So the job of trying to patch up Sino-U.S. relations will go to the admiral, unless two very different constituencies, separated by an ocean of mistrust, inadvertently combine forces to shoot his nomination down. One is those anti-reform, anti-American elements in China who believe that behind the kindly face of Uncle Sam lurks the true reality of a fierce, hawkish Frankenstein. The other group is here in America--anti-China forces who believe that the true face of China is to be found not in the urbane Zhu Rongji but in some second coming of Mao. It’s ridiculous to suggest that all that keeps U.S. relations with China from slipping back to another Cold War is a lone admiral who believes, not unlike Winston Churchill, that jaw-jaw is better than war-war. But it’s not silly to suggest that Congress’ failure to confirm Prueher would be a second Belgrade bombing of Sino-U.S. relations--and this one indisputably intentional.