“On My Mind: Laughing In Beijing”

By A. M.
Rosenthal
The New York Times, 04 July 1997

How delightful it must be these days
to be a member of the Chinese Communist
Politburo! Every time they get together
they must laugh and laugh and laugh.

Every day they hear the highest
American officials, members of Congress,
the press, intellectuals, the lot of
them, mesmerize themselves speculating on
whether China will remodel Hong Kong or
Hong Kong will remodel China.

The men of the Politburo know all
these heavy-duty thinkers still have not
grasped the new historic reality that
Beijing has brought about: China is
remodeling America.

Beijing has changed the thinking and
behavior of America’s President,
political parties, top business
executives, journalistic and academic
seers, even of the guardians of its
security.

Most delicious to the Communists,
China has reshaped and diminished the
value America places on itself — its
democratic and religious values, even its
military security values.

Let’s dispense with the question of
whether the Communist rulers will
dominate China’s future or kindly allow
one of its cities, the least trusted, to
take over.

Why on earth should they? China and
other dictatorships have shown throughout
modern history that they can expand
economically without expanding liberty —
as long as the democracies are so
submissively ready to transfer their
capital and technology to them.

About Hong Kong’s own liberties —
China made its intentions clear before
its flag went up. Beijing wiped out the
elected legislature, bullied the local
press into self-censorship and announced
that 4,000 troops would be arriving, for
starters. Foreign and Hong Kong investors
danced and feasted. America mewed.

The chatter that investors will want
China to be more “liberal”
about human freedoms, and that this will
bring some kind of contest between them,
comes from a mixture of guilt at
deserting dissenters and the muddy-minded
assumption that investors in China care
about anything except profits.

So back to reality — the remodeling
of America. (Our allies needed no
reshaping to put money uber alles.)

Beijing could not remodel America by
itself. It got American cooperation.

China did what America would not. It
made human rights a tough part of its
policy — but the Communist way. Knowing
its rule increasingly depended on total
control, Beijing deepened repression.
Then it added real international
pressure: if Western companies said a
critical word, or failed to urge
appeasement on their governments, they
would lose trade and contracts.

In America, the China trade lobby was
Beijing’s instrument of pressure,
persuading Mr. Clinton to kill human
rights as a part of U.S. policy. From
that, all else flowed.

As an appeaser of China, the U.S.
could not expect its allies to oppose
repression elsewhere. America’s sanctions
against small dictatorships like Cuba and
Burma became a mockery.

American politicians reshaped their
thinking about foreign interference.
Official and business life in China
revolves around favoritism, bribes,
payoffs. So it was natural for China to
infiltrate American politics with money
— and for remodeled American politicians
to accept.

The new U.S. Government and business
thinking instructs us that a $50 billion
trade deficit is good for workers; be
happy. Remodeling also helps business
sacrifice jobs in the future. China
demanded and got from American businesses
the technology and equipment to produce
their products itself. After all, we
couldn’t make deals with them if we only
looked out for American workers, right?

The new Clinton line was that if the
U.S. was more understanding about
Beijing, China would be less disruptive
internationally.

The New York Times headline, July 3:
“China Is Top Supplier to Nations
Seeking Powerful, Banned Arms.” The
authority is the Central Intelligence
Agency, the nations include Iran, Syria
and Pakistan, the “supplies”
are technology and materials, and the
weapons are ballistic, nuclear and
chemical.

The Administration knew about these
deals but courteously accepted Chinese
statements that it knew nothing about
them and would not do it again.

America’s new-think is dangerous to
its ideals and security. But at least it
is good for laughs in Beijing.