And the spectacle of Warren Christopher cringing in Beijing, pummeled by his irate hosts. Christopher, ironically, had gone off to Asia feeling mildly optimistic. The Chinese foreign minister had asked him to come (contrary to later reports). Quiet progress was being made on human rights. The Chinese were prepared to make concessions, even on Tibet (where a “dialogue” with the Dalai Lama was hinted). This trip could, in effect, close the deal. The understanding, says a White House aide, was that “the pieces would be in place or the trip wouldn’t happen.” The pieces seemed to be falling into place. Except for one: Chinese dissidents-rightly and very obviously-were hoping to use the secretary’s visit as an opportunity to embarrass the government. Wei Jingsheng, the dissident leader, had been daring the government to arrest him for months. The day Christopher left for Asia, he succeeded. The Chinese rounded up Wei and some of his colleagues and, furious with the Americans for giving the dissidents leverage, took it out on the secretary of state. How could Christopher-and, especially, his old China hand Winston Lord-not have seen this coming?
Neither has offered a plausible explanation. But then, we’re not very good at understanding the Chinese, a consequence of our myopia and their preference: “calculated ambiguity” has long been the Chinese diplomatic and martial strategy of choice. Right now, the ambiguity isn’t so calculated. It’s a confusing and schizophrenic time in Beijing, a moment of great weakness and historic strength-both of which point to intransigence on human rights. The economic boom has rendered the central government near irrelevant. All it has left is the illusion of authority: it can’t collect taxes, but it can bust dissidents. With Deng Xiaoping near death, no Chinese leader can hope to succeed him if he acquiesces to American human-rights demands, At the same time, the boom has created a pride bordering on smugness, a need-after 150 years of Western bullying, Of NO DOGS OR CHINESE signs in the parks of Shanghai-to be treated as equals. The pride cuts across political philosophy. It is expressed even by dissidents, most of whom oppose our MFN threat. Several months ago in Shanghai, a young Chinese who did serious jail time after Tiananmen told me he was appalled by his government, but also by American “arrogance” and hypocrisy: “Any chance you guys will lift MFN status from Saudi Arabia this year because of its long history of human-rights violations?”
This policy makes no sense. Sen. Max Baucus compares the threat of sanctions to dropping a nuclear bomb on China. That is imprecise: it’s more like a neutron bomb that would cripple the 150 million or so Chinese involved in the private sector-the very people who share our values-by imposing 40 percent tariffs on their products, while leaving the communist state apparatus intact. It would block the only viable path to freedom for China: the inevitable demand for more rights, for more information, for the rule of law, by a rapidly emerging middle class. As their prosperity grows, the Chinese will want their savings secure, their workplaces safe. They might even demand democratic reform, as was the case in Taiwan and South Korea. (Oh, by the way: the neutron bomb would also zap an estimated 171,000 American jobs and $7.5 billion in exports.)
How can Clinton get out of this mess? One is tempted to advise a Rose Garden ceremony at which the president writes out a personal check for $1,000 to Asia Watch, praising its vigilance against human-rights abuses in China-and then announces the unconditional extension of MFN status. But he’ll probably have to be more subtle than that. He can’t appear to walk away from yet another foreign-policy commitment. At a Council on Foreign Relations forum last week, Henry Kissinger suggested sending a special envoy-someone like former ambassador Leonard Woodcock -to close the deal Christopher thought was within his grasp. This makes sense: the Chinese are more likely to respond to a discreet effort than to a frontal assault. They’ve shown their resolve by humiliating the American secretary of state; they may now have the leeway to make concessions. In any event, the president must be given policy options other than “confrontation or capitulation.” Kissinger has had his own problems in Asia, especially with regard to human-rights abuses. But he’s right: if Clinton’s team can’t find a better option by June, it will be a spectacular failure and, this time, on a diplomatic matter of the greatest import-relations with an emerging Asian superpower, the country most likely to challenge America economically, and perhaps militarily, in the next century.
