The Anti-china lobby grows
KAPLAN, LAWRENCE F.
The Anti-China Lobby Grows by Lawrence F. Kaplan In the great debate over China, the playing field is becoming more level. On one side is the pro-China lobby, which favors "engagement." What this...
...Their fear of popular involvement is understandable...
...What this has come to mean is giving a near-absolute priority to the expansion of economic ties with China...
...The possibility that the anti-MFN campaign will find a popular echo provides an endless source of annoyance for supporters of engagement...
...The debate has so far pitted "neoconservatives" against "realists," human-rights advocates against corporate spokesmen, the New Republic against National Review...
...Supporters of engagement would prefer to rely on the goodwill and, more precisely, the self-interest of the political establishment...
...One is House minority whip David Bonior, who said of Al Gore's trip to Beijing this spring: "Are we simply going to go to China, stay silent, and raise a glass for signing a couple of contracts that will do little to affect our $40 billion trade deficit...
...The scandals have, in Pat Buchanan's words, "given us the high political ground...
...But facing widespread popular disapproval, the defection of influential elites, and persistent Chinese belligerence, that goodwill could easily evaporate...
...Even so, the pro-China lobby is considerably stronger than the anti-MFN coalition—and it includes the sitting administration...
...This year alone, major studios plan to release no fewer than four films that address the plight of Tibetans under Communist rule...
...Though it commands neither the money nor the influence of the pro-China lobby, the anti-MFN coalition is quickly becoming one of the most interesting and varied alliances of the post-Cold War era...
...This week, for example, there is to be a joint press conference in which three groups will come together to oppose MFN: the Family Research Council, composed largely of evangelical Protestants...
...Another interest group on the left, the environmental lobby, has weighed in against MFN on the grounds that Western investment will exacerbate already dangerously high pollution levels in China...
...It includes not just hardline anti-Communists, but economic nationalists, religious conservatives, labor unions, campaign-reform advocates, and human-rights activists...
...Hollywood, still a loyal patron of liberal causes and a powerful voice within the Democratic party, has also embraced the humanitarian critique of China—particularly on the subject of Tibet—with the enthusiasm that so often accompanies its public advocacy campaigns...
...In one such poll, taken last month for The Weekly Standard, 61 percent of respondents opposed renewing MFN...
...Call your congressman today to say no to Communist special trade privileges...
...Public opinion on China, to the extent that there is any, is running in the negative, largely shaped by the Clinton fund-raising scandals...
...Though it boasts extraordinary financial resources and wields formidable influence in Washington foreign-policy circles, the pro-China lobby commands surprisingly little public support...
...Our $40 billion trade deficit with the People's Republic has propelled China into a spotlight of popular frustration once reserved for Japan...
...Politicians, too, have constructed an unusual legislative coalition of MFN opponents, a development that has forced the business lobby to shelve its campaign for permanent MFN status...
...For while defenders of engagement may be able to hold neoconservatives and human-rights activists at bay, it will prove extremely difficult for them to contain indefinitely religious conservatives, American labor, and Buchanan and Perot voters, as well as those for whom China policy and campaign-finance reform have become intertwined...
...But the central problem confronting the China lobby is that its cause commands no popular support...
...Struck by the significance of Christian conservatives' entering the fray over MFN, journalist Martin Walker has observed, "The Chinese have no idea what is about to hit them when they take on organized American religion...
...Buchanan's plea to put "common decency ahead of corporate profit" has been echoed by, among others, Ross Perot, who repeatedly attacked China's trade status during the 1996 campaign...
...The array of Christian groups mobilized recently in the fight against MFN is impressive...
...They are joined by a growing group of lawmakers that includes, among others, Democrats like Congressional Black Caucus chairman Donald Payne and House minority leader Richard Gephardt, and Republicans like International Relations Committee chairman Benjamin Gilman, Susan Molinari, and Bill Paxon...
...Driving the anti-MFN effort on the left, meanwhile, is labor, whose leverage over the Democratic party mirrors the influence religious conservatives wield within the Republican party...
...Aside from the Family Research Council and the Catholic Conference, it includes the Christian Coalition and the Southern Baptist Convention (with its 16 million members...
...There is, in addition, the attention given to China's outrages on the covers of Time and Newsweek...
...the United States Catholic Conference...
...Motivated by China's abortion policy and its persecution of Christians, this unlikely addition to the China debate—religious conservatives have stayed largely silent on foreign-policy issues since the collapse of the Soviet Union—threatens the prospects of the pro-China lobby in a way that no other special interest could...
...Clearly, the constellation of interests opposed to MFN in both political parties does not augur well for supporters of engagement...
...You listen as hard as you want, but you won't hear the sound of freedom in China today...
...Labor views MFN as a threat to low-skilled American jobs, and its critique, not surprisingly, echoes that of Buchanan...
...The pro-China lobby finds itself under challenge from those who support a more muscular policy, either strategic containment of China, cancellation of its most-favored-nation status (MFN), or both...
...After all, until recently there was no China debate to speak of...
...You see, it's illegal...
...Democratic representative Nancy Pelosi joined Republican House colleagues Frank Wolf and Christopher Smith in an anti-MFN effort in the House of Representatives that has attracted protectionists, civil libertarians, and anti-Communists...
...Indeed, no major liberal constituency—except of course the administration's "commercial diplomats"—appears to support engagement...
...Other local governments are considering proposals to "divest," a la South Africa, from companies that do business in the People's Republic...
...In the Senate, the anti-MFN alliance includes liberal Democrats Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, and Paul Wellstone, as well as many Republicans...
...On Capitol Hill, dozens of Democratic legislators have scored the administration for its policy of "de-linking" human rights from trade...
...The director of the Family Research Council, Gary Bauer, has organized news conferences, lobbied members of Congress, and run radio and television advertisements to present the Christian case against MFN renewal...
...It is those who have joined the debate most recently, however, who provide a bridge to the wider electorate...
...One of these, currently playing in California, begins: "The sound of Chinese Christians singing their favorite hymns at an open church service...
...Complementing the labor critique on the left are liberals frustrated by China's abysmal human-rights record...
...Similarly, Tibet has become a cause celebre on college campuses, while from an entirely different quarter comes news that shareholders of Motorola, Boeing, and Allied Signal have sponsored resolutions calling on their companies to respond to rights abuses in China...
...Joining Buchanan from the ranks of the old Right are several persistent anti-Communists, including Terrence Jeffrey, his former aide and now the editor of Human Events, and Jesse Helms, who has used his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to lobby against MFN and repeatedly blast the Chinese government...
...Unions have enlisted several prominent politicians in their anti-China campaign...
...Lawrence F. Kaplan is a fellow of strategic studies at the Nitze School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C...
...Disturbed by the new debate, such luminaries as Henry Kissinger and Charles William Maynes have charged that "public hysteria" is driving the current campaign...
...In short, the debate thus far has been conducted as a conversation between elites...
...And for their part, feminist organizations attack the People's Republic for its "one child" policy, which they hold responsible for widespread female infanticide in rural China...
...They have drawn support from left-leaning scribes, including Nat Hentoff, Anthony Lewis, and Mary McGrory, who has written that "our leaders make excuses for the dragon, with its evil designs . . . as if it were a perfectly nice country with a few regrettable quirks...
...Fortunately for those of us who perceive America as something more than a business enterprise and diplomacy as more than commerce, much of it already has...
...Accordingly, recent opinion polls register overwhelming public opposition to MFN...
...Echoing McGrory's sentiments on China are the editorial pages of the Nation, the Village Voice, and Dissent, publications for which U.S...
...In fact, the Communist government imprisons and tortures and will even kill those who challenge it...
...Not since the Vietnam-era collapse of a bipartisan foreign-policy consensus has there been an international issue that galvanized the support of so many disparate ideological camps...
...Indeed, the growing strength of the anti-China forces lies in their extraordinary diversity...
...Reflecting this sentiment, municipalities in several states, including New York, have offered legislation that condemns Chinese human-rights violations...
...Thus, Pat Buchanan, in recent television appearances, press conferences, and op-ed pieces, has sought to direct the ire of his fellow economic nationalists toward China...
...The Christian Right brings the voice of the most influential bloc of conservative voters to the campaign to change China policy...
...And insofar as institutions like the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post remain barometers of establishment sentiment, the China lobby may be losing its hold over elite opinion as well...
...But it will no longer be...
...and the AFL-CIO...
...involvement in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia has prompted a reconsideration of Vietnam-induced suspicions regarding the uses of American power...
...Unlike Buchanan, however, labor is spending millions of dollars to promote its message...
...Indeed, to the extent that a successful American foreign policy must rely on public support, the current China policy is a manifest failure...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 36
