Clinton in
China Doing the Right Thing, Nevertheless Overlooks
India
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON - If President Bill Clinton is feeling
beleaguered by his many domestic critics of his trip to
China he should perhaps recall the damning chorus he helped
orchestrate against his predecessor George Bush for pursuing
much the same policies. In his first presidential debate
with Bush, Clinton tore into him, accusing him, in effect,
of being soft on China and promising that if he were elected
the age of conciliation would end. No more would America
kowtow to the Chinese economic behemoth if it meant
tolerating human-rights abuses and prison labour in Chinese
factories.
This line always plays well to the American public. But
the centre holds, as it did before, and has for every U.S.
president since Richard Nixon made his historic U-turn with
his sensational Foreign Affairs article, "Asia After
Vietnam".
Here Nixon spelt out the reasons for a more conciliatory
policy towards China. His most important point was the need
to support a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Now, five
presidents on, the U.S. appears to have no alternative to
maintaining the consequences of this profound change in
realpolitik, even though the reasons for it have long
disappeared. The primary reason for keeping the top spinning
at century's end is U.S. financial and commercial
involvement over ten times what it is in India. Yet India is
a country not only of comparable size, but probably of more
significant possibilities in the long-run, given its
transparent democratic and legal traditions.
It is easy, as critics do,--and I have just added my
part--to make Mr Clinton look ridiculous, cosying up to a
totalitarian power. What a contrast with the do-nothing
policy with India, even when it was apparent to a lot of
India-watchers, except the CIA, that it was engaged in a
headlong race to catch up China in the nuclear missile
stakes.
For all the truth in such comparisons, all they do,
rather perversely, is underline how difficult it is to slow
a spinning top. You either choose to keep its speed up, or
it topples. The U.S. now has so much political and economic
capital invested in China that nothing short of an overt
military challenge by China would persuade Washington to
slow the relationship down--even if it means giving the
impression of ignoring other friendships and downplaying
other important considerations.
More to the pity, then, that the policy of engaging China
often looks more shop-soiled than it actually is. But that
is human nature as in all intimate relationships both sides
have their temptations to take the other for granted and
play their negative side. The Chinese, if not the politburo
itself, then some fairly close to it, were behind the
attempt to buy into an election win by the Democrats and to
exploit loopholes in American rules on foreign sales of
space and military-related computor technology. The Clinton
Administration, for its part, brazenly broke President
Bush's promise not to sell state-of-the-art F16 fighter jets
to Taiwan, partly as a sop to the U.S. right wing and partly
to give one more plum to the too-powerful arms lobby.
Yet, however lopsided and, on occasion, malevolent the
"opening to China" policy is, it is essentially right. Most
of the time China is not the irresponsible heavyweight of
common caricature. On most issues, over the last 17 years,
China has behaved with shrewd regard for international
stability and the best environment for economic
development.
In the current Asian financial crisis it has played an
exemplary role. On the political scene, in perhaps the most
important of recent developments, it has allowed Hong Kong
the freedom for maneuver it promised, keeping to the
timetable for elections and a progressive enlargement of the
democratic component.
In the recent past, in the face of North Korean
hostility, it established political ties with South Korea
and helped reduce tensions surrounding the discovery of
North Korea's nuclear bomb program. It has played an active
role in the UN-arbitrated peace efforts in Cambodia. More
recently, it has refrained from further aggressive actions
in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
China, by and large, is not a loose cannon on the
international deck, even if it has done some not very clever
things--like helping Pakistan with its manufacture of
nuclear bombs and its purchase of missiles. (But so has
America done its share of counterproductive work in this
neck of the woods--turning a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear
program after the Soviet invasion of neighbouring
Afghanistan, when Washington felt it needed Islamabad's
help.)
Keeping the China top spinning IS a sensible policy.
Clinton's effort this week to bind Beijing ever closer to
Washington is undoubtedly the most promising way to proceed.
But that should not preclude two important things: building
a closer relationship with India; and always, week in and
week out--not just one speech in Tiananmen Square--being
consistently forthright on human rights. Without that
broader and more moral ingredient American policy towards
China will look even more self-interested than in fact it
is. Over the next two years, if Clinton wants to exit the
presidency on a high note, he has to get this right.
Perhaps, when he gets home, he should re-read the transcript
of his debate with George Bush.
June 24, 1998,
LONDON
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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