China
is forgotten in the
U.S. presidential contest
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
October 20, 2004
LONDON - In 1967 when he was a
presidential candidate Richard Nixon caused a sensation
with his Foreign Affairs article, "Asia after Vietnam",
anticipating a more conciliatory policy towards China. In
his first presidential debate Bill Clinton tore into
George Bush Senior accusing him, in effect, of being soft
on China and promising that if he were elected the age of
conciliation would end.
Now in the recently held
presidential debates between George W. Bush and Bob Kerry
China policy appears to have come to a silent stop.
Judging by the total lack of debate China is a non-issue
between them, not even worth a few sentences of
analysis.
Before Nixon came to power "Red
China" was portrayed in America and much of the West as a
nation bent on the domination of Asia. Its admission to
the United Nations was firmly refused.
Nixon turned all this on its head.
He decided to capitalize on the Sino-Soviet rift and
enlist China as a counterweight to Soviet power. His
historic visit to Beijing launched a campaign to persuade
the American electorate that China was the good communist
and the Soviet Union the bad one.
"The Chinese were courteous,
industrious, family orientated, modest to the point of
being shy. They had the most wonderful and ancient
cultural conditions; they were wizards at ping-pong; they
loved giant pandas", so wrote at the time the Soviet
author, Vladimir Pozner, mocking American
attitudes.
Nixon was not naïve about
China but the newly wooed American public certainly was.
It took a long time for American policy to settle down.
Ronald Reagan took Nixon's policy to an absurd conclusion
dreamily speaking, during his visit in 1984, of
"so-called communist China". His successor, George Bush,
also leant over backwards to placate Beijing, uttering
only mild disapproval when protesting students were mowed
down in Tiananmen Square in 1989. With indecent haste
Bush dispatched Brent Scowcroft, his national security
advisor, on a secret mission to Beijing to reassure
Beijing that the American relationship was
intact.
Clinton, going into reverse, tried
to stir it all up with campaigns against China's human
rights record and prison labor in Chinese factories,
which appeared at the time to resonate with public
opinion, only to realize later that he was shooting
himself in the foot. To open up China it was necessary to
open wide the West's doors to it: to encourage its
economic development with trade and in this way it would
find itself entering into the rules of the global market
place- a necessary first step towards
democracy.
Towards the end of his term of
office Clinton found the right mix: emphasizing all
manner of economic, educational, and cultural cooperation
but keeping a softer but nonetheless audible voice on
human rights by annually voting against China at the UN's
Human Rights Commission meeting (a lead which the
Europeans wrongly refuse to emulate). George W. Bush has
continued the policy and it seems to work.
China prospers, the human rights
situation steadily, albeit too slowly, improves and, as
Secretary of State Colin Powell has noted, China has
voted for all the key UN Security Council resolutions
against terrorism and is playing a helpful role in trying
to end the stalemate over North Korea's nuclear weapons'
programnes. National security advisor, Condoleezza Rice,
claimed recently that the U.S. "has the best relationship
that any administration has had with China."
It might well be true that the
relationship with China has never been better. This is
progress. The first choice must indeed be a peaceful,
economically productive, relationship. Only if that is
pursued will the atmosphere within China become conducive
to improvements in justice, human rights and democratic
participation. But this doesn't mean there aren't
important issues to be debated and critical decisions to
be made.
Most important is not to be
overawed by China at the expense other important Asian
powers. Within the lifetimes of our young people India, a
sophisticated democracy, will overtake China and it is
important that the West focus on India with the same
obsessiveness, even more so, than it does on
China.
Second, the U.S. must up the ante
some more notches with the Europeans over the German and
French attempt to have the EU arms embargo with China
dropped. This particular quarrel with Europe is too
important to lose if Taiwan's security is to be
assured.
And third, make sure the trumpet on
human rights always has a clear and penetrating sound,
without making the volume of the notes depend on other
Chinese policies.
Kerry could have raised these
points in the debates. He didn't. And, win or lose,
America's China policy will be the weaker for it.
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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