LIMPING TOWARD CHINA Dealing with China requires a flexible policy that nevertheless has a clear-eyed vision of U S interests and values Unfortunately, the Clinton administration is all flexibility and no vision
Finn, James
LIMPING TOWARD CHINA Clinton's weak-kneed policy James Finn There have been a number of calls for a reassessment of U.S. policy toward China. Is a shift possible? Yes. Even as it is distracted by...
...The administration's subsequent rationale of "constructive engagement" was presented in different ways in different forums, but it can be subsumed under three categories: (1) trade and aid, (2) strategic interests, and (3) human rights...
...Imposed unilaterally by the United States, they would have rendered U.S...
...In principle...
...The government continued severe restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, privacy, and worker rights...
...And, unfortunately, there are religious bureaucrats who seem determined to remain blind to the situation...
...Thus, the possibility of a strong clash of interests can be anticipated, and the grounds for a favorable outcome are unlikely...
...Some members of Congress are continuing a long and honorable effort to alert their colleagues to the abuses of religious liberty in China...
...Clinton's feeble response when asked whether a crackdown on civil rights in Hong Kong would disturb American-Sino relations-"Well, it wouldn't help anything"-is not promising...
...an acknowledged authority on China, in 1987-only now is the full story beginning to break through the wall of silence and indifference...
...This is an invitation for China to ignore it, an invitation they have readily accepted...
...policy makers...
...Through aggressive marketing by corporate America and supported by the vigorous promotional efforts of the late Ron Brown, then secretary of commerce, trade increased more than 33 percent by 1996...
...Sometimes they express dismay as China massacres some people, imprisons others, harshly restricts prodemocracy dissidents, and conducts missile exercises near Taiwan...
...More important, in essential respects, our China policy is failing...
...Here one must acknowledge that, with notable exceptions, the failure to recognize and publicize, let alone combat, these abuses is shared by governments, the media, international analysts, and the churches themselves...
...Rosenthal has written a series of hardhitting columns on the subject...
...The fact that Chi was the officer in charge of the brutal suppression of the prodemocracy demonstration in 1989 should not, administration spokesmen said, blind us to the need to engage China's military leaders nor be allowed to color the visit...
...products...
...A defensible position...
...Trade and aid: This is the most visible and most quantifiable aspect of Sino-American relations and has received the greatest attention...
...The National Council of Churches secretary, Victor W.C...
...China is reported to have the third largest and fastest growing economy in the world...
...Under congressional pressure, the State Department has formed an advisory committee on religious freedom...
...Still, the management of Hong Kong, which will come under China's control in July, will be a good test case for this policy...
...Prodemocracy campaigners, ethnic separatists, and independent religious groups continue to be the objects of the full and oppressive weight of state power...
...Many of those persecuted have perished in China...
...It is composed of serious and informed people, but it is too early to see if it will be taken seriously...
...Not long ago the United States was recognized internationally as a leader in the fight for freedom and democracy...
...He then said that he would seek progress on human rights as part of an effort to build "a more positive relationship" with China...
...Again: "Overall in 1996, the authorities stepped up efforts to cut off expressions of protest or criticism...
...Around the world they have been subjected to kidnapping, slavery, flogging, torture, rape, imprisonment, and crucifixion...
...According to American Christians, religious repression within China in 1996 was the worst it had been since a period in the late '70s...
...China, we are informed, regards criticism of its human-rights practices as an intrusion into its internal affairs and, when such criticism is offered by the United States, as an attempt to impose Western standards on another culture...
...It has continued to grow, the large surplus always in China's favor...
...The sanctions that never materialized would have seriously and adversely affected business interests and workers in both countries...
...And, ominously, all public dissent against party and government was crushed so effectively that "no dissidents were known to be active at year's end...
...firms, and agreements with G.M...
...J.], described on national television our present Sino-American policy as "aggressive appeasement...
...and Boeing...
...That has translated into an active policy in which human rights are held hostage to other interests...
...Today, high-level officials rack up air miles in trips to China to promote their countries' goods...
...In the first news conference soon after his reelection, Clinton said that the State Department's just released annual report on human rights revealed "that we have not made the progress in human rights [in China] that I think-that I had hoped to make...
...There is another even-more-telling reason...
...That gap is most evident in one area-namely, human rights...
...In their own reports, Amnesty International and Human Rights/Asia bolster these findings...
...the New York Times published a front-page story on the underground church in China (January 26,1997...
...The Chinese were not obliging...
...A policy on course, it would seem, until Secretary of Commerce William Daley temporarily suspended all trade missions abroad while existing standard procedures were being revised...
...But the killing of prodemocracy demonstrators in Tiananmen in 1989 provoked criticism of China and of that policy...
...Aye, there's the rub...
...Trade between China and the United States has increased rapidly and most recently has included a multibillion-dollar textile deal, long sought by U.S...
...Once in office, he issued an Executive Order that put forth a checklist of human rights and said, in essence, no improvement on these issues, no MFN...
...each persecuted person or group merits support...
...Charlene Barshefsky, the administration's chief trade official, warned that Washington would block China's entry if it continued to block American agricultural goods from entry into China...
...China has long wanted to become a member of the World Trade Organization...
...The export salesmen insist that foreign-policy considerations such as these can be separated from the trade missions...
...Even as it is distracted by its campaign contribution troubles possibly involving China, the Clinton administration has good reasons to engineer such a shift...
...Conference on Women in Beijing leave their Bibles at home...
...This is as close to an admission of failure as we can reasonably expect the president to make...
...Prison conditions remained harsh...
...Our salesmen, both commercial and official representatives, have been effective in pushing U.S...
...policies will not be evident for years...
...But then the general asserted, on Human Rights Day, that not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square-even though the event was televised around the world and informed human-rights organizations estimated that hundreds if not thousands were killed by the army- this gross lie was cravenly glossed over rather than openly refuted by American policy makers...
...government and American corporations can take to show that we are serious in our support of democratic principles and human rights...
...Any position that dismisses them rather than seriously coping with them will itself not be regarded as serious...
...Political and strategic interests: Slower to execute and evaluate are policies affecting the strategic interests shared by Asian countries and the United States: stability in an Asia composed of competing, edgy, and sometimes internally volatile countries...
...Some newspapers have recently given editorial attention to the most egregious cases of persecution...
...Even without denying China MFN status, there are a number of actions the U.S...
...The Chinese know better...
...In effect, he asked China's rulers to provide a cover, even the most transparent, to show something he could point to as sufficient enough an improvement in human rights to justify the MFN renewal...
...The extreme care that some U.S...
...The bishops of the Catholic church in the United States are keenly aware of what is taking place in China and have testified in Congress, but they have yet to mount large efforts to educate their constituents...
...They bluntly rebuffed Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who carried the message to China, and even retorted that the importance to China of trade with the United States should not be overestimated...
...The Clinton administration insists that while it is still dedicated to promoting human rights, it is also intent on developing foreign policies that are not hostage to a single plank in those policies...
...officials take not to disturb China on human rights may be symbolized by their recommendation that Americans attending the 1995 U.N...
...Although it is a truly shocking fact, only a few organizations have noted that more Christians have died for their faith in this century than in all preceding centuries...
...In China, the redoubtable Deng Xiaoping has been followed by President Jiang Zemin and other leaders who must fortify their new positions...
...companies less competitive than their foreign counterparts...
...He could point to no significant improvements, yet he wished to improve relations with China...
...The English Economist, no enemy of free enterprise or commercial interests, argued in a recent cover story (February 1-7,1997) that governments should give up being salesmen...
...On some of these issues the consequences of U.S...
...This is not, surely, what Americans want, nor what a president concerned about his position in history would like to be remembered for...
...Come religious organizations that have long sought to break through the surrounding si-lence are now beginning to be heard, and oth-ers are beginning to join them...
...But being realistic, it expects that governments will keep their salesmen at home when pigs learn to fly...
...Add to these North Korea's nuclear policies, the future of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the regional role of Japan, and the proliferation of arms and arms technology...
...Consider, in turn, the three aspects of the declared policy and what has developed since it was adopted...
...In addition, this argument continues, Western values, including respect for human rights, will follow Western trade...
...In 1993 the United States exported $9 billion worth of goods to China and imported $33-billion worth, a $24-billion surplus in China's favor...
...officials engaged in Chinese affairs have not recognized that the Catholic Patriotic Association and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement for Protestants are government-controlled and that a large gap exists between them and the underground Catholic church faithful to the Vatican and Protestants driven to worship in "house churches...
...Moreover, they point out, other Asian countries want a strong U.S...
...Human-rights issues cannot hold other issues hostage, but neither should those other issues hold human rights hostage- as they now do...
...The persecution includes long periods of slave-like toil in labor camps, long-term imprisonment, beatings sometimes leading to death, house arrest and displacement, and the destruction of churches and tombs...
...Communications technology, for example, will prove a liberating force in China...
...But one large group has tended to be overlooked, even in many human-rights reports: those who suffer persecution because of their religious beliefs...
...Human rights: The policy makers who shaped constructive engagement argue that, even cut loose from other considerations, human rights were and will continue to be a significant factor in Sino-American relations...
...The link it tried to forge between human rights and other aspects of SinoAmerican relations failed...
...Another leading human-rights activist, Nina Shea, has just published In the Lion's Den, a deeply informed and timely book on the persecution of Christians worldwide that also contains recommendations for action by concerned citizens...
...In fact, U.S...
...The respected annual Freedom House worldwide survey of human rights for 1996-97 gave China its lowest possible rating and asserted that "the regime continues to have one of the worst human-rights records in the world and the rule of law is nonexistent...
...Today, even some U.S...
...We must take such reactions, however strained they seem, into account if constructive engagement is to gain a firm footing...
...The United States will address human-rights abuses in differing forums and in different ways, diplomatic and political, in public and open channels as well as in quiet, off-the-record exchanges...
...Developed with the fullness and complexity they deserve, and with the ingenuity their supporters readily provide, these arguments are cogent...
...One of this number, Christopher Smith [R-N...
...Benefits from most export salesmanship come with a price...
...Faced with such intransigence, the Clinton administration buckled and dropped the executive order...
...This revision is due in part to questionable financial-political ties, such as those among the Democratic National Committee, the Commerce Department, and the Asian fund-raising activities of John Huang, who served on both...
...presence, but prefer that the United States take a nonprovocative approach...
...No area of human-rights abuses should be slighted...
...and, in the same paper, A.M...
...And, on another level, is the administration's official reception of China's defense minister, General Chi Hao Tian, during which he met with President Clinton...
...As a replacement for obligatory linkage between human rights and other aspects of our policy, constructive engagement is a defensible and promising policy-in principle...
...A second-term president presumably is freed from considering political decisions in light of the next campaign, and the new secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, is noted for her forceful advocacy of democracy...
...Michael J. Horowitz of the Hudson Institute is a dynamic and galvanizing agent on this issue...
...human-rights policy on China is so weak as to be virtually nonexistent...
...In the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton criticized the Republicans for not pressing China harder on human-rights abuses, a deficiency he pledged to remedy...
...We are now in danger of losing that position...
...But China has already indicated that Chinese control means the erosion of the basic freedoms that Hong Kong's 6 million people have long enjoyed...
...If the execution of constructive engagement lived up to its promise, with no single aspect holding the entire policy hostage, there would, at this point, be something to show for each aspect of the policy...
...The State Department report, released at the end of January, says that China's "government continued to commit widespread and well-documented human-rights abuses in violation of internationally accepted norms....Abuses included torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, and arbitrary and lengthy detention incommunicado...
...Although much of this information has been available for some time-Freedom House published The Catholic Church in China by L. Ladany, S.J...
...That walking-on-eggshells policy appears to go by the board, however, when trade is at issue...
...Those who wish to continue a policy that enhances the commercial exchanges between China and the United States present formidable arguments and are properly heard in the councils of U.S...
...However, as the date for renewing China's MFN approached, Clinton found himself between a rock and a hard place...
...policy of constructive engagement is relatively new...
...Those who favor constructive engagement argue that the United States is more likely to achieve a greater measure of success in influencing such matters by cooperation rather than confrontation with China...
...Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has made clear this country's deep interest in the future of Hong Kong...
...This long-standing division is testimony to the constant efforts of Chinese authorities to crush the relatively small but vital and growing body of Chinese Christians...
...And that price, the Economist concludes, is not worth paying, in either economic or diplomatic terms...
...Good...
...If the Clinton administration wishes to bring its actual policy into line with its declared policy, it must listen and respond to the voices speaking up for human rights...
...China sent signals that it would respond favorably to this pressure...
...A brief reprise of how we got to our current relations with China: The "most favored nation" (MFN) status accorded China under President Jimmy Carter continued under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush...
...We are not likely to see large changes in strategic relations with China in a short time-frame, and the U.S...
...He tried to find a respectable way to extricate himself...
...Hsu, for example, after a trip to China with a delegation specifically charged with examining church-state relations, returned to say there was no persecution and the best way for Americans to help Chinese Christians was to support their institutions...
...Alas, like some other policies under the Clinton administration, there is a gap between declared policy and its execution, between the enunciation of strategic goals and the means deployed to achieve them...
Vol. 124 • April 1997 • No. 8
