Clinton's China policy is problematic
Clinton's China policy is problematic
By Jeffrey Parker
BEIJING (Reuter): U.S. President Bill Clinton's controversial policy of "constructive engagement" toward China has engendered ties that analysts say look more like a heavyweight brawl than the gentle art of diplomacy.
The Pacific giants struck a deal on Sunday ending a festering row over copyright piracy in China, pulling back from the brink of a trade war just hours after the expiry of a deadline for punishing mutual economic sanctions.
But even before negotiators had agreed on how to word the hard-won mutual concessions, Beijing was already launching a sweeping diplomatic counter-offensive against what it regards as Washington's unfair criticisms on human rights.
A major cabinet statement rebutted U.S. allegations that Beijing violates citizens' human rights and attacked what it called serious human rights lapses in the United States.
Calling such combativeness unsurprising, analysts said it showed China's desire to talk, but also its refusal to be a pushover merely because Clinton's "constructive engagement" policy had ended Beijing's diplomatic exile after it crushed the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement on June 4, 1989.
"The Chinese are saying, 'Okay, fine, we'll engage with you -- but we also know what our interests are'," U.S. business consultant and China watcher Steve Rasin said.
"They do not see constructive engagement as a gift."
Clinton adopted the policy in May 1994, alienating many critics in both parties with his decision to delink trade relations from demands for progress in human rights.
"It is silly of the United States to think that it somehow could change Chinese policies fundamentally through the carrot or the stick," Rasin said.
"This is the beginning of what will be a very difficult period," he said. "China recognizes its own interests in terms of integration with the world economy. But they have a lot to learn as far as how to project their power without being too blunt about it."
Tough bargaining is expected in most areas of bilateral friction -- whether it is arms exports, moves to ban nuclear weapons or human rights.
An influential state-run business daily used far blunter words to describe China's view of constructive engagement.
"Fight, fight, talk, talk will become normal," China Securities said in a Feb. 8 commentary.
Experts say bare-knuckled relations with an increasingly assertive China are better than the destabilizing political estrangement that followed the Tiananmen crackdown.
"To try to engage China is not only a viable option but the only option," Rasin said.
"There is not much the United States can do to change China's course in fundamental ways. What else can it do? To isolate China is not the best approach."
Analysts noted that the evolution of Sino-U.S. relations has been greatly affected by the collapse of Soviet power.
Washington can no longer view China as a "card" to be played against Moscow as it did at the height of the Cold War, but must accept that the world's most populous country is becoming a geopolitical giant in its own right, with surging economic clout and steadily expanding military might.
Washington would be making a mistake, they said, if it resumed a post-Tiananmen policy of isolating Beijing, which might force China to fill the role of global antagonist that was vacated by the Soviet Union.
They say such realpolitik underlies Washington's decision, reported by the Los Angeles Times, to send a navy ship to make the first U.S. port call in China since the Seventh Fleet called at Shanghai just before the 1989 crackdown.