Romancing The Dragon
(by LA Joseph | Outlook | June 29, 1998)
Forget Tiananmen, Tibet and nukes. And the critics at home. For Clinton, China is big money
The US Administration is so intent on sending the "right message" to China that it even agreed to President Bill Clinton being formally received at the infamous Tiananmen Square upon his arrival in Beijing on June 25. The enraged human rights lobby cried foul, saying a welcoming ceremony at a site where hundreds of student demonstrators were killed nine years ago would be an insult to the memory of that sacrifice.
But Clinton's Tiananmen stopover should hardly come as a surprise, because he has been consistently and blatantly following an appeasement policy vis-a-vis China. A poll found that 47 per cent of Americans believe Clinton's China policy is influenced by campaign contributions.
Several reasons are cited for the Clinton-China love affair, the main being economic. Clinton's detractors say his "leniency" towards China stems from the fear that Beijing would otherwise clamp down on American interests in its booming home market.
Asian economies in peril, China also needs American money and technology, and yet it is Beijing which is calling the shots in this relationship. Even experts admit that the Clinton Administration has literally turned a blind eye to Chinese nuclear and missile proliferation.
The question is if the US could ignore the Chinese transfer of missile technology as well as entire missiles to Pakistan, why did it impose sanctions on India and Pakistan after their nuclear tests? According to a State Department source, if the White House could have found a loophole to avoid sanctions on New Delhi and Islamabad, it would have. But after India and Pakistan conducted their tests and announced them, there was little the US could do. As far as M-11 missile transfers were concerned, since they were essentially clandestine and denied by both Pakistan and China, it would, "therefore, be easier to fudge the facts," he added.
Clinton is defending his policy of engagement with China, calling it a "principled, pragmatic approach" which does not gloss over "fundamental differences", while fostering reform through vigorous economic and cultural ties. He also claimed credit for the release of several Chinese dissidents, saying because of the US-China relationship, "it has been made more likely that political dissent would be more respected." But again, the Tibet lobby fears Clinton might not push China hard enough to reopen dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
According to Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, who has emerged as one of the Administration's most aggressive critics on China, no one believes that the kind of engagement the president advocates would have any kind of moral standard. Bauer believes the visit has become a face-saving affair and that Clinton is under pressure to prove that his "engagement" policy with China is more than a commercial hustle for his well-heeled contributors.
The president is also under fire for waiving a provision in US economic sanctions against China to permit US satellites to be launched aboard Chinese rockets. The satellite export licence was granted to Loral Space and Communications, a company run by a big Democratic Party contributor and, according to a Congressional critic, "national security was clearly compromised". House and Senate committees are investigating whether the waivers were political payoffs.
Critics are targeting the Administration for transferring the authority for licensing this export from the State Department to the Commerce Department. The transfer meant that the export of US satellites for launch in China would be exempt from sanctions even if the US concluded that China had sold missile components to Pakistan or Iran. The transfer has generated criticism because the Commerce Department only takes into account the financial interests of US firms when weighing whether to allow a space deal, whereas the State Department focuses on national security issues and demands tougher conditions.
In addition, the Democrats are guilty of accepting $100,000 in campaign contributions collected by Johnny Chung, some of it from a Red Army aerospace bureaucrat. Although the money was subsequently returned, the heat is on. The disclosures on Chinese fund-raising have touched a nerve. A recent CNN/Time poll found that 47 per cent of Americans believe that the president's decisions on China have been influenced by campaign contributions.
Proliferation critics have also raised their voices, as it becomes increasingly more evident that the Administration looked the other way while Beijing sold missiles to Islamabad. On June 11, the former chief of the CIA's weapons counter-proliferation efforts, Gordon Oehler, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that America's determination not to impose economic sanctions on China led it to deliberately play down evidence that Beijing sold 34 nuclear capable M-11 missiles to Pakistan in November 1992.
Oehler said intelligence agencies were "virtually certain" that the sale occurred and were "discouraged to see their work was regularly dismissed" by Clinton aides. Other witnesses said the Administration fiddled with federal regulations in order to prevent sanctions against China for selling missiles to Pakistan and Iran. As the terms of the Missile Technology Control Regime would have required the president to automatically cut off almost all high-tech trade with China, the Administration refused to accept the unanimous conclusions by the intelligence agencies that M-11 missiles were being sold to Islamabad.
"No Administration likes automatic sanctions," said Oehler. "They want to preserve their negotiating flexibility with China". Why did the Administration behave in such a way? Why did it try to cover up what was going on? Explains a senior State Department official: "This Administration uses a combination of engagement with China, carrots and sticks, including the threat of sanctions, to encourage better behaviour by China. It would defeat our purpose to impose sanctions without trying alternative ways to work with Beijing."
On Kashmir, the Administration has done a complete volte-face. In the past it had adopted a hands-off policy on Kashmir. Clinton is now saying China has a key role. Asked why Clinton was trying to involve China, a State Department official went on the defensive. "The president said China has a role in the security situation in South Asia and may be able to contribute ideas on Kashmir and other issues. He did not say China should mediate on Kashmir or intervene in any way. He did not use the 'm-word'. He never said 'mediate'. He spoke about a role for China. That was all."
But why internationalise Kashmir? Were they not concerned about Indian sensitivities? A Congressional aide responded: "Why should we not talk about Kashmir? It is one of the biggest flashpoints. If we can get the two parties to start a dialogue, we will. Why should we practise restraint? Did India take our sensitivities into account when they conducted an N-test or threatened a pro-active policy in Kashmir?"
In a recent editorial, The Washington Post commented: "It takes a particular level of chutzpah for Mr Clinton now to point to Pakistani and Indian nuclear tests as a justification for closer ties with China. India's unfortunate decision to test undoubtedly stemmed from a complex mixture of motives, but certainly part of the stew was China's assistance to Pakistan's nuclear programme insufficiently condemned by the US and US fawning over China, disproportionate to the attention paid to surrounding democracies such as Japan and India. Now Mr Clinton is pointing to the negative results of that flawed policy to justify its continuation." Republican Senator Connie Mack, co-founder/chairman of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, is aghast. "There is something inherently wrong with sanctioning a democracy legally acting in its perceived national interest while rewarding a single-party Communist state which threatens regional security in violation of international law," he said.
It's all about money. As a former Administration official put it: "We are giving China a key role with regard to proliferation in South Asia when China itself is part of the problem. We want to cooperate with China to keep an eye on India despite evidence that Beijing has been secretly providing Pakistan with nuclear technology and was the catalyst behind India's N-test. Why? In the end, it is all economics. China has the money and the markets. Not India."
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org