Bush Speech Was On and Off Target

At the very time when George W. Bush unveiled his views on American foreign policy last week, China’s Gen. Xiong Guangkai was in Europe demonstrating both the strengths and the limitations of what Bush had to say.

Bush’s speech was crafted by an illustrious group of advisors, most of whom had served in his father’s administration. The address was notable above all for its relatively hawkish views on China, which the Republican presidential candidate branded “a competitor, not a strategic partner.”

Those words amounted to a jab at the Clinton administration, which in recent years has proposed the idea of a “constructive strategic partnership” with Beijing. If he is president, Bush said, China will be “unthreatened but not unchecked.”

The other key element in Bush’s speech was his emphasis on strengthening America’s long-standing alliances, such as with Europe, Japan and South Korea. He pointed to the remarkable coalition the Bush administration put together in the months leading up to the Persian Gulf War.

“Never again should an American president spend nine days in China and not even bother to stop in Tokyo or Seoul or Manila,” Bush declared. That, too, was a swipe at Clinton, who decided not to stop in Japan or to visit any of America’s other Asian allies when he went to China in the summer of 1998.

Where does Xiong fit into Bush’s speech?

Xiong is the vice chief of staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, in charge of both military intelligence and international relations. It was Xiong who memorably warned during the Taiwan crisis of 1995-96 that the United States could no longer intimidate Beijing as it had in the 1950s because, in the event of nuclear war, China now had the power to hit Los Angeles.

Last week, the Clinton administration dispatched a Pentagon team to Beijing, hoping to revive American military ties to China and, perhaps, to arrange a visit by Xiong to Washington. But when the American delegation arrived, Xiong, who usually greets the PLA’s guests, wasn’t even in town.

Instead, a few days earlier, he had slipped out of the country on a hastily arranged trip to Russia and France, where he met with top military officials in both countries. Afterward, a French general said that he and Xiong had “many common points of view” and that both supported the development of a “multipolar power structure.”

Translation: China and France are beginning to collaborate to help offset American military power. And so is Russia. Those three countries represent three of the five members of the U.N. Security Council.

Jonathan Pollack, an Asia specialist at the Rand Corp., asserted that Xiong’s trip symbolized China’s “strategic distancing” from the United States. Sure, Washington and Beijing have just signed the agreement for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, but that deal doesn’t change the underlying estrangement between the two countries.

Bush’s speech captured well America’s changing view of China. He indicated there could be no return to the conciliatory policies of a decade ago, when the United States was courting China’s support against the Soviet Union.

“The conduct of China’s government can be alarming abroad and appalling at home,” Bush said. He called for a “free and prosperous China,” emphasizing the importance of democratic values.

“Would his father have given a speech like this one? I don’t think so,” said Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Not on China . . . and not in the passages on freedom and democracy.”

But while the younger Bush’s remarks on China took account of the realities of the 1990s, his discussion of America’s allies seemed a bit nostalgic. He made it sound as if it would be relatively simple for the United States to revive the Gulf War era, when America led and its allies fell into line.

There have been a lot of changes since then--changes epitomized by Xiong’s trip.

France, which fought alongside the United States in the Gulf War, is now worried about the implications of an American missile-defense system and about U.S. efforts to revise the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. So are other European governments.

Bush staked out some positions that America’s allies have strongly opposed. He stoutly defended the Senate’s rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty--which the leaders of Britain, France and Germany all implored the United States to approve. Can the United States have strong ties with its allies while rejecting or ignoring their advice?

Just as America’s European allies are changing, so is Japan. “It is a different Japan now from the one the Reagan-Bush administrations faced,” observed Michael Green of the Council on Foreign Relations. Japan is less eager to follow American leadership and more willing to develop its own military capabilities.

In short, Bush’s speech seemed clear-eyed about China but somewhat less so in its treatment of America’s allies. The next U.S. president will have to face a world in which competitors like China and allies like France may sometimes team up to challenge American power.

Maybe I’m being too critical. Bush’s speech was probably designed to show that even if he can’t name the prime minister of India, he and his team have interesting ideas about foreign policy. In that sense, Bush succeeded.

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