Clinton appeases China, in China

The Jakarta Post's Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin continues a series of articles on President Bill Clinton's current visit to China with an analysis of the ways in which Clinton appeased China -- even while the visit was proceeding.

HONG KONG (JP): When he returns from his current tour of China to the United States on July 4th, Independence Day, President Bill Clinton is unlikely to exit from Air Force One waving a small piece of paper, and proclaiming, like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, that he has attained "peace in our time".

Given that 1998 marks the 60th anniversary of the perfidious Munich pact which inexorably led to World War Two, Clinton does not want to liken himself in any way to Chamberlain. Nor does Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who took office proclaiming that she was "a child of Munich", as if that meant she knew enough about history's mistakes not to repeat them.

But as the Clinton administration has conducted relations with China prior to, before and even during the President's visit, it has exuded the same underlying pattern of appeasement which was so ruinous when practiced by Britain in the 1930s -- and which is always damaging to the stability of international relations.

One essential parallel between British behavior then and American behavior now is that both powers too often made policy based upon the recognition of weakness rather than a more self- confident assumption of strength. As Henry Kissinger recently noted, the Clinton Administration often exudes "discomfort with the role power plays in international affairs".

The Chinese political elite, by contrast, being used to tough power politics between factions at home, is equally adept at power politics between nations. While Clinton too often acts out of weakness, the Chinese frequently go to the opposite extreme. They act out of an unrealistic assumption of strength. This can be a dangerous game -- but not with Clinton, who appears to take far too many of those Chinese assumptions at face value.

So, as a result of the U.S. appeasement, China has won a famous victory in terms of domestic political advantage -- but the victory carries a heavy price in terms of loss of bipartisanship on China policy within the United States, which may return to haunt the communist regime in the end.

The extent to which U.S. appeasement patterns have suffused Clinton's China policy were plain for all to see right from the start of the visit.

China withdrew visas already given to three reporters from Radio Free Asia in the U.S.. RFA was originally a Congressional initiative and is U.S. government-funded. Clinton protested the Chinese decision -- but, at the same time, the White House warned the journalists not to get on the plane.

All that a .S. President had to do was to quickly inform the Chinese that the three had been accredited for the tour, and that they would be on Air Force One when it arrived in Xian. If the Chinese wanted a nasty incident filled with adverse publicity right at the start of the visit, so be it. Almost certainly the Chinese would have quickly given way, proclaiming loudly that the withdrawal of the visas was a regrettable mistake by a low-level official.

That is exactly what happened when then Prime Minister John Major visited Beijing in 1991 to sign a Sino-British agreement. Faced with a firm British "no", the Chinese deftly gave way.

It is instructive that the Chinese even tried to score a point in this way -- when they already exclude the station by jamming many, maybe most, of RFA broadcasts. They knew their man. They knew that Clinton is almost congenitally incapable of standing up for a matter of principle, and who hates confrontations. He has given way to China so often that they tried it one more time. And they won. Clinton's protestations got him nowhere. The journalists stayed at home.

Next came the incident when at least four dissidents were detained as Clinton arrived in Xian, and Chinese officials frequently denied that anything untoward had happened. Petty security officials in Xian then added fuel to the flames by behaving towards some of the 375 newsmen accredited to the Clinton tour as they perennially behave towards the Chinese people -- as unthinking and often spiteful bullies.

One Xian official went further and reminded the U.S. media that China was a free democracy, too. This had the advantage of provoking ABC's Sam Donaldson to remind his network audience what the Clinton Administration is in danger of forgetting -- that China is a police state.

Again, the incidents were instructive for what they revealed of the Chinese attitude towards Clinton. Outwardly, Beijing's propaganda was saying many complimentary things -- notably that Clinton ranked with Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon in the pantheon of Presidents who have been "Friends of China".

Inwardly, Beijing could not even be bothered to make sure -- as they easily could have done if they had tried -- that all petty bullying was halted and that no dissidents were arrested while Clinton spent 24 hours in Xian.

The U.S. reaction was instructive, too. There were protests, there had to be, with all those 375 pressmen around. But they lacked bite and sanction.

National Security Adviser Samuel Berger had to be positively harassed by the American press before he could bring himself to state the obvious -- that China's human rights record was "dreadful", and that you don't sweep up people like rubbish when someone comes a-visiting.

What was instructive was Berger's reluctance to state this simple truth (the Chinese authoritarian regime sweeps up people all the time) just as, these days, nobody in the Clinton Administration ever places the adjective "communist" next to the noun "China".

All that Clinton had to do to get Chinese attention was to state firmly that he would not continue with the Xian official program until all four were released, and harassment had stopped. But the Chinese knew in advance that he would never act that decisively. So they just continued their normal habits of striving for the impossible -- total security control throughout their vast nation.

The Chinese took no notice of the half-hearted protests that the Americans did issue -- and even President Jiang Zemin adopted the evolving party line that nothing was really amiss in Xian.

What is also interesting is that evidently neither Clinton nor his top advisers could point out to the Chinese leaders that if they had reigned in their pursuit of total security control, and allowed the U.S. press to interview those few rather sad dissidents still visible in China today, it would make it that much easier for the Clintonites to promote their "Emerging New China" theme for the folks back home in the United States. This rather obvious point was, however, a nuance too far for Clinton -- and for the Chinese.

American appeasement reached its current apogee at 9 a.m. in Beijing on June 27th as Bill Clinton arrived for his welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of The People. This time the security people had been even more thorough than in Xian. The vast and lonely expanse of Tiananmen Square behind the ceremony had been swept clean of all human beings. The Square, and undoubtedly a large number of Chinese, were alone with their memories of 1989.

Bill Clinton at least arrived in a black suit, but he did not have the courage to wear a black tie.

Was it merely imagination? It seemed that Jiang Zemin, who looks a trifle uncertain at the best of times, suddenly exuded self-confidence. It would be understandable if it were so. For Jiang, and his close political ally, former Premier Li Peng, must regard Clinton's appearance in the square as a great victory in the context of China's domestic politics.

The Chinese have made a point of insisting upon welcoming ceremonies in the Square since June, 1989. Prior to that, the communist regime had lost control of the square to the demonstrating students, then to the demonstrating populace. Then it lost legitimacy ("the mandate of heaven") by conducting the Beijing Massacre largely outside, but also inside, Tiananmen Square.

The communist regime has sought to win back legitimacy since then by showing endless foreign visitors respectfully inspecting the People's Liberation Army on the fringes of Tiananmen.

Bill Clinton's insistence, later in the day at his joint press conference with Jiang Zemin, that the use of force in 1989 was "wrong" would have gained real credibility had he refused a welcoming ceremony in the Square.

If his mindset were not one of appeasement, he could have done so.

Pointing to Zhou EnLai's famous handshake with Nixon as he stepped off the aircraft at the airport, Clinton could have argued that a similar greeting, and welcome, would have been to China's advantage. Controversy within the U.S. would have been avoided. Again, promoting the New China image by the Administration would have become easier. The prospects for renewed bipartisanship within the United States, which is also to China's longterm advantage, would be increased.

Either that, or Clinton could have played hardball and said that, since the Chinese insisted on a Tiananmen ceremony, he would postpone a China visit for the time-being, perhaps rescheduling it in November when he hoped to visit India.

Given Beijing's aim of making itself the sole paramount partner of the US in Asia, such remarks, if made, would have secured the Chinese leadership's attention: an airport ceremony, or some other compromise, would have quickly arranged.

Clinton, firmly stuck in the appeasement mode, never said any of these obvious things. Yet he could have made a very strong case that it was not in China's interest, as well as his own, to arouse needless ceremonial controversy.

China, anxious as ever to pursue the short term gain rather than perceiving the longterm benefit, persisted with its insistence upon Tiananmen. Trying to wipe the CCP's slate clean of the 1989 shame remains a primary objective.

So Jiang and Li won their "victory". It probably counts for something within the Chinese Communist Party, maybe a lot. But for those Chinese (and foreigners) with memories of 1989, it was a Pyrrhic victory at best. As the PLA soldiers marched past the US President, bayonets at the ready, it was obvious that those pictures would fade perfectly, on TV screens around the world, into shots of the PLA advancing on the 1989 demonstrators.

China had insisted on the ceremony, because it knew Clinton would give in.

One of the troubles with major nations that are appeased by stronger nations is -- they never know when to stop.

But that is also true of those who do the appeasing.

Window: China, anxious as ever to pursue the short term gain rather than perceiving the longterm benefit, persisted with its insistence upon Tiananmen. Trying to wipe the CCP's slate clean of the 1989 shame remains a primary objective.