THE ULTIMATE ‘CHINA CARD’: RIGHT RESPONSE TO ODIOUS CHINESE BEHAVIOR IS RECOGNITION FOR TAIWAN

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton
today exhibited anew his fecklessness and
inconstancy in foreign policy in
announcing the unqualified
renewal of Most Favored Nation status for
the People’s Republic of China.
That is the practical effect of his
decision to extend MFN benefits to all
goods except some of those produced by
the People’s Liberation Army, (i.e., $200
million worth of Chinese-manufactured
arms and ammunition).

This token gesture is as
inconsequential as is the
“significant progress” and
“improvement” in Chinese
emigration and forced-labor manufacturing
practices being puffed up by the
Administration to counter the impression
of yet another Clinton cave-in. Those
familiar with the reality on the ground
are under no illusion, however: The
human rights situation in China continues
to be execrable.⁽¹⁾

The Real Problem

The fact of the matter, however, is
that the sorry state of human
rights in the People’s Republic of China
is but a symptom of a far more
serious problem. All too often,
a government that systematically
disregards and denies its subjects’ basic
rights is prone to engage in other, more
dangerous forms of malevolent behavior.
This is certainly true in the case of
communist China, as evidenced in the
following areas:

• Proliferation:
  China is increasingly a driving
  force in the global proliferation
  of weapons of mass destruction.
  It is believed to have
  transferred, sold or otherwise
  facilitated other nations’ access
  to chemical, biological and even
  nuclear weapons-related
  technology — and to ballistic
  missiles with which such weapons
  might be delivered.
• Counterproductive Role
  Concerning North Korea: China
  has steadfastly resisted U.S. and
  international efforts to bring
  pressure to bear on its long-time
  client, communist North Korea, to
  stop Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons
  program. The threat of a Chinese
  veto in the U.N. Security Council
  has complicated — if not
  effectively foreclosed — the
  option preferred by Washington
  and other capitals, namely of
  trying to compel North Korean
  compliance through economic
  sanctions.
• Engaging in a Massive
  Conventional and Nuclear Weapons
  Build-up: China has been
  making a sustained effort to
  modernize its military forces and
  its associated industrial base.
  This has resulted, among other
  things, in Beijing’s acquisition
  at fire-sale prices of front-line
  Russian equipment. Thanks,
  moreover, to an initiative led —
  incredible as it might seem, by
  U.S. Defense Secretary William
  Perry — China is also obtaining
  advanced weapons and other
  strategic technology directly
  from the United States.⁽²⁾

  There is also fresh evidence
  of China’s commitment to
  sustaining and improving its
  nuclear arsenal. China is
  pursuing improvements and
  modernizations to its
  intercontinental ballistic
  missile force that will greatly
  enhance Beijing’s ability to
  threaten devastating attacks
  against the United States.

  What is more, according to
  today’s New York Times,
  Beijing will shortly conduct
  another underground nuclear test.
  The Times reports that
  Western governments amazingly do
  not regard “the military
  purpose for this test” —
  i.e., “a predictable upgrade
  of China’s relatively small
  strategic nuclear force” —
  as “threatening.” This
  is so even though China is
  “improving its ‘symbolic’
  ability to strike the continental
  United States with up to 20
  warheads.”

  Given the personal prestige
  President Clinton has invested in
  securing an ill-conceived
  comprehensive ban on such
  testing, however, China gets a
  “two-fer” from taking
  this step immediately after the
  U.S. decision to renew MFN. On
  the one hand, it will, in the
  words of a former U.S. Ambassador
  to China, Arthur Hummell,
  “demonstrate…that [the
  Chinese] cannot be pushed around
  — that the United States cannot
  dictate the course of Chinese
  actions.” Put less
  diplomatically, it will
  signal Beijing’s determination to
  pursue worrisome aspirations to
  regional and even global military
  power.

  On the other, this nuclear
  test will palpably demonstrate
  the Chinese leadership’s reaction
  to Washington’s recent kowtowing
  over MFN (among other issues): utter
  contempt for the emerging
  American “paper tiger.”⁽³⁾

• Regional Aggressiveness:
  China has also begun to exhibit a
  troubling new assertiveness
  internationally. For example, it
  has recently placed armed
  military forces on one or more
  buoys in the waters around the
  disputed, oil-rich Spratly
  Islands. And its proxies in
  Cambodia — the notorious Khmer
  Rouge — are displaying once more
  the belligerency that generally
  accompanies and reflects
  strong backing from Beijing.

We Are Underwriting the
Chinese Regime and Its Misbehavior

Let there be no doubt: The $20
billion-plus annual surplus China is
running in trade with the United States
is contributing directly to these
activities. Surely a malevolent
regime like Beijing’s would be engaged in
some — if not all — of them
even if it were not benefitting from such
a windfall. But they would likely be
doing so at a lower and less dangerous
level than is possible thanks to de
facto U.S. underwriting.

The Real China Card —
Taiwan

If the Clinton Administration were
remotely serious about contending with
the actual and emerging
strategic problem posed by China — as
opposed to shadow-boxing about the human
rights manifestation of that problem —
it would play the ultimate “China
card.” It would recognize
Taiwan for what it is: an economically
powerful, increasingly democratic
sovereign state and potentially vital
ally, despite Beijing’s
continuing claims on the island.

While the Bush and Clinton
Administrations have relaxed somewhat
regulations concerning the transfer to
Taipei of defensive military systems, the
United States continues to follow the
Beijing-dictated line that Taiwan is an invisible
nation. In fact, the treatment of Taiwan
is eerily reminiscent of the widely
decried black-balling of the PRC
in the period between the communist
take-over in 1949 and the Shanghai
Communique in 1972.

This is clearly an absurd way for the
United States to deal with a state that
enjoys $80 billion in currency reserves,
that has sustained impressive economic
growth rates over the past twenty-five
years and that purchased roughly $17
billion in U.S. exports last year. That
number could clearly have been much
higher if Washington refused to continue
to defer to Beijing on Taiwan and
proceeded to normalize its relationship
with Taipei.

Appeasing Beijing by
Offending Taipei

Instead, the “China hands”
making U.S. policy today — for example,
former Ambassador to China Winston Lord
(now Assistant Secretary of State for
East Asia and Pacific Affairs) and
Ambassador to China-designate Charles
Freeman (now Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Regional Affairs) — are
determinedly adding to the
Washington-Taipei estrangement.

For example, the Wall Street
Journal editorialized on 10 May 1994
about the appalling affront given
Taiwanese President Lee Ten-hui six days
before: President Lee requested
permission to overnight in Hawaii enroute
from Taipei to Costa Rica and was
allowed, at State Department direction,
only to make a ninety-minute
refueling stop.

In addition, the Asian
English-speaking press has been filled
with reports recently of major U.S.
aircraft and nuclear power-related sales
in the offing to Taiwan — potentially
worth billions of dollars. These may well
go to the French or other competitors,
thanks to State Department policy
concerns. Amidst all the hysteria about
losing business and jobs if MFN were not
renewed to China, the silence about the
consequences of such policies is
astounding.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy
believes that the United States
faces a serious and growing threat from
China to its friends, allies and
interests in the Western Pacific and East
Asia. It is past time for this
problem to be seen for what it is — a
strategic and long-term challenge,
requiring systemic and concerted
responses. Improving relations
with Taiwan and other economic and
security partners in the region must
figure prominently in such a strategy.
This will, in turn, require a reliable
American military presence and less
fractious trade ties to these partners.

The time has also come to revisit the
policy of offering China: sustained trade
surpluses; largely unconditioned lending;
undisciplined investment; easy access to
American educational institutions,
corporations and other means of obtaining
sensitive commercial and national
security secrets; and liberal technology
transfers. The jury is still very much
out as to whether the Marxist doctrine of
economic determinism will, in fact, apply
— that is, whether political reform will
necessarily follow economic
liberalization in China. In light of the
evidence available thus far, it is unwise
for the United States to be betting so
much on this highly debatable
proposition.

If the United States is to
have a strategic partnership with China
that is worth having — and thus in
America’s interests — it must deal from
strength, discipline and a genuine
commitment to freedom and not
from the position of abject kowtowers. It
certainly must not remain indifferent to
the significant divergences between U.S.
and Chinese policies and interests.

The President’s decision today should
precipitate a rigorous congressional
review of all these issues. Just as the
Congress has been compelled to intervene
on the Administration’s foreign policy
more broadly, it must seize the present
moment — created by Mr. Clinton’s
breathtaking retreat — to put the U.S.
policy toward China under the bright
lights of bipartisan scrutiny. As it does
so, it must take steps to implement
forthwith the agenda of long-overdue
measures and policies aimed at
recognizing and strengthening
U.S.-Taiwanese relations and reflected in
the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and
subsequent legislation.

– 30 –

1. One graphic
example appeared last night on the CBS
Evening News concerning the systematic
repression of freedom of religion. As
Reverend Dennis Balcombe of the Revival
Christian Church observed: “There’s
perhaps twice as many Christians as
members of the Communist Party, and they
feel this is a threat to their
power.” The report concluded with
the ominous observation: “According
to human-rights watchers, more than 100
Chinese clergy and Christian leaders are
currently imprisoned or detained; and
religious persecution in China, they say,
is getting worse, not better.”

2. In this
connection, the Center for Security
Policy’s Decision Brief
entitled, ‘Inquiring Minds
Want to Know’: Does Bill Perry Have What
It Takes to Make Sound Defense Policy?
(No. 94-D 13, 2
February 1994) noted that:

“…According to yesterday’s Washington
Times, Secretary Perry will
co-chair a new U.S.-PRC joint
commission on ‘defense conversion.’
Dr. Perry’s opposite number on the
Chinese side will reportedly be Lt.
Gen. Ding Henggao, chairman of a
notorious official organization known
as COSTIND that is dedicated to
industrial espionage and technology
acquisition.”

3. For more on
this sorry record, see the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled Christopher
Reaps the Whirlwind in East Asia:
Kow-Towing to Beijing, Appeasing
Pyongyang, Bungling in Tokyo,
(No. 94-D 27,
11 March 1994).