Bush Outlines Objectives on Foreign Policy

Laying out his foreign policy views in the greatest detail yet, Texas Gov. George W. Bush on Friday called for “a distinctly American internationalism” that would seek closer relations with U.S. allies in Europe and Asia and pursue a more confrontational approach toward Russia and China.

In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Bush pledged that as president he would “develop--and then deploy” a missile defense system against nuclear attacks, oppose international loans to Russia if it continues to “attack civilians” in Chechnya and provide Taiwan greater means to “defend itself” against China.

In forceful language, he condemned the global treaty to ban nuclear tests that the Republican-controlled Senate recently voted to reject. And, while he said he would welcome China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, he denounced China’s behavior at home and abroad and promised to take a harder line than President Clinton has against Beijing.

“China is a competitor, not a strategic partner,” Bush declared, in a reference to a phrase the administration has used. “We must deal with China without ill will--but without illusions.”

Throughout the campaign, Bush has faced questions about his capacity to conduct foreign affairs. Those doubts were exacerbated by a Boston television interview earlier this month when Bush was asked to name the leaders of Pakistan, India, Chechnya and Taiwan and could identify only one. Aware of the stakes for the speech, the governor spent weeks preparing for it with a group of advisors that included former foreign policy aides for his father, George Bush, and President Reagan.

As president, Bush said, five priorities would guide his foreign policy: strengthening alliances and working “to extend the peace” in Europe and Asia; controlling the spread of nuclear weapons; advancing democracy in the Western hemisphere, partly by negotiating a hemispheric free-trade pact; advancing peace in the Middle East; and expanding free trade. Friday’s speech focused on the first of those goals, and Bush indicated he would deliver further addresses later.

Overall, the speech placed Bush in the mainstream of internationalist GOP thought--a position underscored Friday when Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, a leading Republican thinker on foreign policy, endorsed him. Like other prominent Republican internationalists--such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has emerged as his leading competitor for the GOP presidential nomination--Bush rejected the inward-looking nationalism gaining strength in his party and insisted that the U.S. cannot retreat into what he called “protectionism and isolationism.”

“In a world that depends on America to reconcile old rivals and balance ancient ambitions, this is a shortcut to chaos,” Bush said.

But Bush also argued that he would pursue American interests abroad more aggressively--and, if necessary, through more unilateral action--than President Clinton.

Bush’s differences with Clinton were perhaps sharpest on issues relating to arms control and missile defense. Bush called for deploying a defense against nuclear attacks and offering to share the technology with Russia. But in interviews this week, Bush said that even if Russia did not agree to jointly develop a missile defense system, he would within months of taking office unilaterally “abrogate” the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty between the two nations. The ABM treaty bars America from deploying such a defense.

While the Clinton administration has supported a program to research the feasibility of a missile defense system and engaged in discussions with Russia about possibly sharing such technology, both Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have argued that it would threaten relations to discuss unilaterally deploying a defense system, or abrogating the ABM treaty, until research determines whether the technology is feasible.

Bush’s approach is less controversial on the Republican side: Both McCain and Steve Forbes have also called for deploying a missile defense system and abrogating the ABM treaty if necessary.

Bush also had curt words for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that the Senate rejected over heated protests from Clinton. While he indicated he would maintain the ongoing American moratorium on testing, Bush said the treaty “does not stop proliferation, especially to renegade regimes. It is not verifiable. It is not enforceable.”

Responding to Bush’s speech, Marc Ginsberg, a senior foreign policy advisor to Gore, said that Bush’s denunciation of the test ban treaty undermined his promise to pursue closer relations with American allies--almost all of whom supported the treaty. “He is taking the administration to task for not being a good enough ally,” Ginsberg said. “Yet on the one issue they found the most important in recent months, he walked away and turned his back on them--namely the test ban treaty.”

Echoing Clinton’s own condemnations of President Bush’s policy toward China in 1992, Gov. Bush also lashed Beijing’s behavior as “alarming abroad, and appalling at home.”

Bush’s most provocative proposal regarding China may have been his pledge to expand “theater missile defenses among our allies” in Asia. In interviews earlier this week, he indicated that he would support providing missile defense to Taiwan depending on China’s “behavior.”

Forbes and McCain have both supported variations on that idea, but Gore opposes proposals to provide Taiwan missile defense, arguing that it would inflame tensions with China and risk an arms race.

On Russia, Bush said he would increase funding for an existing U.S. program that provides Moscow funds to dismantle nuclear weapons. But he joined McCain and Forbes in calling for a cutoff in International Monetary Fund lending to Russia if attacks on civilians continue in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.