Anatomy of a Failed Policy: Clinton’s ‘Engagement’ of China Amounts to Appeasement, is Not Working and is Unworthy of U.S.

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton yesterday literally dusted off his Defense-of-
Engagement-with-China speech — drawing passages verbatim from the text he used
to explain his policy of
kow-towing to the Communist rulers of Beijing when one of them, President Jiang Zemin, came
calling last year. The speech was well-received by the select group of like-minded government
and business leaders to whom he delivered it at the National Geographic Society. Addressing
such an audience is good practice for his trip to China where, it appears, he will meet exclusively
with those deemed appropriate by his hosts — an attitude of submission epitomized by his
determination to be shown shaking their blood-drenched hands in Tiananmen Square. href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

A Bill of Particulars

Far more importantly, the President’s defensive remarks offer a basis for critical
analysis of
his policy, a scorecard for judging the actual degree of “success” that has been achieved
by the
Clinton approach to engaging China. The following bill of particulars indicates that it has been
anything but a success and that Mr. Clinton, by redoubling his efforts, threatens
greatly to
compound the damage that will be done to long-term U.S. interests:

Item — Destructive Engagement: The President
created a misleading construct, first by
suggesting that the only alternative to “engaging” China is to try to isolate it, then by suggesting
his policy is not one that amounts to the belief that “increased commercial dealings alone will
inevitably lead to a more open, more democratic China.”

In fact, even those critics of China who believe that every effort should be made to
contain
Beijing’s military build-up and change its repressive Communist
government understand
that a policy of complete isolation would be, as a practical matter, unimplementable.
China can,
however, be engaged in ways that either advance these objectives or undermine them.
For
example, the former would include efforts to block the activities of the People’s Liberation Army
in the United States, its access to strategic dual-use technologies, its ability to sell bonds and
stocks in U.S. capital markets and otherwise to challenge the legitimacy of the ruling Communist
Party (e.g., by enormously expanding the reach and freedom-oriented information provided by
Radio Free Asia). Unfortunately, engagement as dictated by the Chinese government and,
therefore, as practiced by President Clinton, is certain to have the opposite effect.

As Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR), one of the Congress’ most courageous
critics of the Clinton
policy toward China put it on 4 June 1998, the ninth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre:

“The failure of constructive engagement is evident in this simple fact: If there were
today on this anniversary to be a peaceful democracy demonstration at Tiananmen
Square, calling for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the
response of the current Chinese Government would be exactly the same as it was nine
years ago — a bloody crackdown. When you cut through the rhetoric, nothing has
changed in China, and we must, on a bipartisan basis, reclaim our foreign policy
from the unholy alliance of pragmatic politicians, trade profiteers, and Chinese
dictators.”

Item — Ongoing Proliferation: Mr. Clinton credits his
policy of engaging China with
ending China’s aggressive proliferation practices. Specifically, he declared: “In the last decade it
has joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the
Biological Weapons Convention, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, each with clear rules,
reporting requirements and inspection systems.”

The trouble is that, despite these obligations and a new, much bally-hooed domestic export
control regime, China remains, according to the CIA and the Senate
Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services, the Number
One
proliferating nation on the planet. To be sure, thanks to past American complaints, it
has
become more skilled at concealing many of these transactions. Still, no one should be under any
illusion: China believes it to be in its vital interest to promote ties with rogue states from Iran to
North Korea and is prepared to share the weapons of mass destruction, missile and other
technology necessary to do so. It also understands that the Clinton Administration will
go to
great lengths to ignore such activity in the event U.S. intelligence does become aware of
it.⁽²⁾

Item — Dangerous Technology Transfers: President Clinton
used yesterday’s speech to defend
the waivers that allowed U.S. satellites to be launched by China — an action that led to conduct
now being scrutinized by myriad congressional and Justice Department investigators. He failed,
however, to address the larger policy of which these transfers were but one example, a
policy of
basically “anything goes” when it comes to Chinese — even the PLA’s — access to sensitive
dual-use technologies.⁽³⁾ The result of this aspect
of “engagement” has been greatly to facilitate
the Great Leap Forward upon which China’s military is relying to become a “peer competitor” to
the United States in the early 21^st Century.

Item — China’s Mercantilism: The President felt obliged to
acknowledge, at least in passing,
the fact that “access to China’s markets also remains restricted for many of our companies and
products.” The truth is that whatever access has been allowed by Beijing is on
Chinese terms:
Most American companies have found that their ability to sell to the PRC’s market has been
extremely limited; they are primarily permitted to engage in manufacturing for export purposes —
a transfer of jobs from the United States made more attractive by the low wages and minimal
benefits involved in exploiting Chinese workers.

What is more, American companies are routinely obliged to transfer state-of-the-art
technology to
China, potentially jeopardizing their future competitiveness in the Chinese and world-wide
markets. And such companies are, of course, expected to — and generally do —
become active
participants in the China Lobby for still more “engagement” on China’s terms, lest they lose their
ability to do business with the PRC.⁽⁴⁾

The problem with the Clinton policy of rationalizing China’s continuing closure of markets to
American firms — to say nothing of other unacceptable behavior — on the basis of U.S.-PRC trade
was put succinctly by Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) at the 4 June press
conference memorializing
the Tiananmen massacre:

“A trade status which funds the capacity of China to have an aggressive military
program is related to its disregard for its own citizens and the willingness to
disregard the lives and safety of others not only in Asia but around the
world….We cannot compartmentalize MFN and human rights and proliferation and the
targeting of American cities. They’re all a seamless web. And that’s why I opposed
most-favored-nation status for China. They’ve used the trade status as a means of
funding a military operation, which is not only a threat in Asia but around the world.”

Item — Trampling Human Rights: The President
contends that his policy of “integrating
China into the community of nations and the global economy, helping its leadership understand
that greater freedom profoundly serves China’s interests, and standing up for our principles…most
effectively serve[s] the cause of democracy and human rights within China.” This may be his
most untenable claim of all. In fact, despite years of “engagement” Beijing seems no
closer
actually to honoring the basic freedoms for which America has long stood. Repression
continues to be systematically applied; the slave labor gulag for political prisoners remains in
place; harvesting of prisoners’ organs, forced abortions and sterilizations and brutal suppression
of religious freedom and other liberties — which President Clinton yesterday called the birthright
of people everywhere — continue apace.

These attributes of a brutal regime cannot be concealed or appreciably ameliorated by the
forced
exile of a handful of prominent dissidents and similar token gestures, even if the President insists
on calling them “significant results” of his policy of “engagement.” Indeed, even Mr. Clinton’s
own State Department reported earlier this year that: “The [Chinese] government
continues to
commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in violation of
internationally accepted norms stemming from the authorities’ intolerance of dissent, fear
of unrest, and the absence or inadequacy of laws protecting basic freedoms.” href=”#N_5_”>⁽⁵⁾

As Sen. Hutchinson put it in an interview broadcast yesterday by CNN following the
President’s
address:

“He didn’t speak at all in this speech about any repercussions China would face if they
didn’t change behavior on human rights. To be received at the same site of the bloody
massacre nine years ago, I think undermines his whole message of human rights. And
so at the end of the day, there will be a toast and a handshake and a photo-op, a
wink and a nod, and it will be business as usual and China will get what they
want.”

Item — China is Not Behaving Like a ‘Force
for Stability’: In his remarks yesterday,
President Clinton repeatedly sought to credit Beijing with acting constructively on a host of other
fronts — with regard to the dangers of nuclear conflict in South Asia; promoting financial stability
amidst the Asian meltdown; working to contain the nuclear danger in North Korea; and improving
its record in environmental matters. These assertions, like those noted above, do not stand up
well to careful scrutiny.

Consider the following: China has been the prime-mover behind the nuclear arms
race in
South Asia, threatening India and arming Pakistan. China has refrained from devaluing
its
currency for two interrelated reasons: first, regional economic precedents have persuaded Beijing
that devaluation of its non-convertible currency could actually harm the Chinese
economy, and
second, China has recognized the political utility, given the Clinton Administration’s evident
desire to not see China currency devalued, in using this issue to extract concessions at the
upcoming summit; even so, the disastrous condition of China’s banking industry and the crony
capitalism that provides artificial life-support to large numbers of state-owned industries hold out
the prospect of serious financial dislocation for the PRC in the future.

China’s support for Pyongyang has been instrumental in keeping the later’s Stalinist
regime in business. As long as the present government rules North Korea,
there will be a
nuclear weapons program there and a serious risk that such weapons — or chemical or
biological ones — will be used against its neighbors and U.S. troops protecting them.

Finally, even the President could not bring himself to express much confidence about the
“dialogue” Vice President Gore started a year ago with China about environmental policy. Apart
from appealing to the PRC to buy American “green” technology, Mr. Clinton had to confine
himself to hoping that the Chinese will see it as in their own interest to stop
despoiling their
waters, land and air. So much for “engagement.”

The Bottom Line

There is altogether too little to show for Mr. Clinton’s policy of “engagement” with China to
justify its continuation — to say nothing of calling it a success. The Center for
Security Policy
agrees with Sen. Hutchinson and others who have urged him not to make his pilgrimage to
Beijing at a time when he is clearly perceived to be severely weakened at home and abroad, when
the policy he advocates is in tatters and when its repercussions are under serious scrutiny by
criminal prosecutors and congressional investigators.

Whether Mr. Clinton goes now or later, however, the time has come for a
fundamental
reassessment of the wisdom of engaging China on its terms. There are alternatives to the
present policy other than isolation. The national security as well as U.S. long-term
economic interests demand that they be explored and adopted as soon as possible.

– 30 –

1. Interestingly, the Washington Post this morning
features a front-page above-the-fold article
about how enthusiastic those in China who sympathize with or were part of the democracy
movement brutally crushed in the Tiananmen Square are about Mr. Clinton’s visit. What these
people fail to appreciate is that the same determination to give no offense to the Chinese
leadership and otherwise to “engage” China on their terms virtually assures that the President’s
appearance in the Square will be about paying homage to the perpetrators, not to the
victims, of
that despicable crime.

2. The Washington Times reports today that a recently
retired senior U.S. intelligence officer,
Gordon Oehler, testified yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that
“Administration policy-makers used ‘almost any measure’ to block intelligence judgments
confirming that China transferred 34 M-11 missiles [to Pakistan] — sales that automatically
require economic sanctions to be imposed under U.S. anti-proliferation laws.”

3. For more on the dangerous effects of this policy, see the Center’s
recent Decision Brief
entitled Broadening the Lens: Peter Leitner’s Revelations on ’60
Minutes,’ Capitol Hill Indict
Clinton Technology Insecurity (No. 98-D 101, 6
June 1998).

4. These two principles were made explicit in recent instructions to
American concerns interested
in competing for sales of nuclear power technology to China, pursuant to President Clinton’s
astounding finding last year that the PRC was no longer engaging in proliferation that had,
heretofore, prevented such sales under U.S. law.

5. State Department, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 1997,” 30 January 1998.