Rep. Chris Cox Addresses Casey Forum on China; Sets Tone for Symposium Urging ‘Democratic Engagement’

(Washington, D.C.): At a symposium sponsored in New York City yesterday by the William
J.
Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy, Representative Christopher
Cox (R-CA)
delivered a powerful warning to the Clinton Administration as it resumes negotiations aimed at
admitting the People’s Republic of China into the World Trade Organization:

We will not have free trade in China until we have free people in
China

you
can call it business, but you can not call it “free trade.”

Among other highlights, Rep. Cox’s forceful keynote remarks summarized the findings
of
the bipartisan Select Committee he chaired, whose report has done so much to illuminate the
dangers inherent in the Clinton Administration’s policies concerning technology transfer, nuclear
security and counter-intelligence. In so doing, he lucidly critiqued the Administration’s
Sino-centric policy toward the Western Pacific and Asian subcontinent — at the expense of
America’s democratic allies in the region. The Congressman urged that the
United States
instead deal with China as it is, not as we hope it will become.

The Cox address — delivered over an elegant lunch attended by more than 100 past and
present
business leaders, diplomats, government officials and journalists — provided an ideal segue into
the Casey Institute symposium on “China, East Asia and the United States: A Look Ahead” that
followed. Led by four eminent authorities in the field, this discussion addressed in detail the
growing threats posed by the People’s Republic of China and how the United States could most
effectively respond to these developments.

The Casey Symposium’s first panel dealt with the nature of the current PRC regime and its
long-term viability. It also focused on how the Chinese view the security environment in Asia
and
how it will respond to the challenge they believe the United States poses to the PRC’s strategic
objective of dominating Asia and the Western Pacific. The discussion of these topics was led by
Dr. Arthur Waldron, Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise
Institute and Lauder
Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, and by the former
Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, Dr. Michael
Pillsbury. Dr.
Pillsbury currently serves as a Senior Visiting Fellow at the National Defense University.

The Symposium next considered policy options the United States can adopt that would put
its
relationship with China on a more realistic and stable footing, enhancing its security and
bolstering its position and that of fellow democracies in Asia. This portion of the discussion was
led by Roger W. Robinson, Jr., the former Senior Director of
International Economic
Affairs at the National Security Council who currently holds the Institute’s William J.
Casey
Chair, and former Under Secretary of State William Schneider, a
distinguished member of the
blue-ribbon Rumsfeld and Deutch Commissions who serves as President of International
Planning Services, Inc.

Among the numerous noteworthy initiatives advanced by the Lead Discussants were the need
to:
restore close and robust ties (military, political and economic) with Asia’s democracies from
South Korea to India while working assiduously to bring about the pluralistic transformation of
the region’s remaining authoritarian regimes — a policy that has been dubbed one of
“democratic engagement”; foster
greater transparency regarding efforts by companies with
ties to foreign military and/or intelligence agencies to penetrate U.S. capital markets; and
develop and deploy a ballistic missile defense system capable of protecting
both the United
States and its forces and allies in East Asia.