Body language is no science, but when William Perry spoke about China to a group of national security experts last week, several sensed the defense secretary was terribly uncomfortable with the message he was delivering.
The speech was an abrupt departure from Perry’s usual attitude in dealing with the world’s emerging superpower. Instead of seeking cooperation and common goals, he reproached Beijing’s leaders with an artfully phrased but sharp warning to stop threatening Taiwan.
Perry’s midday talk at the National Defense University was a sign that the Clinton administration finally is trying to influence an increasingly belligerent China. But it also displayed how divided the administration is in dealing with China.
After tip-toeing around a China policy since coming into office, the Clinton White House recognized in recent weeks that Taiwan’s drift toward independence–and China’s determination to stop it–has the potential to disrupt the United States’ already prickly relationship with China and to destabilize the Asia-Pacific region.
Washington’s intelligence and foreign policy communities have been aware of Beijing’s attitude for nearly eight months, according to analysts and former diplomats. Chas Freeman, a former assistant defense secretary, visited China last fall and returned with a high-level message that the Chinese might become provoked enough to attack Taiwan to forestall an independence movement.
Still, China was all but ignored by the White House.
The threat of conflict over Taiwan added tension to American complaints about China’s pirating of compact discs and other copyrighted material, its violations of nuclear non-proliferation agreements and reports of human rights abuses. But Freeman’s message was not deemed critical.
Only when that threat became public did the administration recognize that any one of the disagreements with China could create an enormous distraction during the president’s re-election campaign. That prompted the policy review under way in interagency meetings and within the National Security Council.
Beyond seeing foreign affairs as just a domestic political coin, there are also serious policy differences within the administration that are unsettling many analysts.
Perry’s Defense Department, along with the Treasury and Commerce Departments, view China as critical to America’s goals in the region. Officials in other agencies such as the State Department and the Office of the Trade Representative are less accommodating. They believe China must be forced into compliance with international agreements.
Those policy differences also lead to two views on how seriously to take China’s threat to Taiwan. As late as Thursday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that China is not capable of successfully invading Taiwan, although its military could create havoc on the island of 21 million inhabitants with a blockade or a single missile attack.
Gen. John Shalikashvili said there is no heightened state of alert for American forces, but intelligence agencies have confirmed the buildup of Chinese forces for an announced military exercise next month in its province directly across from Taiwan.
The Chinese had suggested there would be six exercises. Four have been conducted, one is under way and presumably one more will be held before Taiwan’s elections on March 23 when President Lee Teng-hui is expected to win re-election.
Behind the antagonism, China may be engaged in what they call ruan ying jian shi, a term that means applying hard and soft policies simultaneously. It is a strategy that increases pressure as it offers more inducements.
Experts believe that once Taiwan publicly accepts reunification talks or just a return to the status quo, China may be willing to negotiate everything from changing its own flag or its name in return.
That is not acceptable to the large, pro-Taiwan lobby–especially but not exclusively among Republican members of Congress, which is preparing legislation to invite Taiwan’s president to Washington. It’s a gesture that even the Taiwanese are reluctant to embrace.
Going even further to infuriate Beijing’s leaders, the congressional bills would recognize Tibet’s claim to be independent of China and would mandate support for a United Nations seat for an independent Taiwan.
That is part of the pressure on the White House. Odd coalitions of liberal human rights groups and traditional anti-communist congressmen are in favor of taking a hard-line approach to China. They predict a Cold War-like condition developing with the U.S. in a military confrontation with China over Taiwan within the next decade.
Trying to influence the internal policy debate are public discussions, editorials and op-ed articles. William Triplett, in the Washington Times newspaper, made a case for using sanctions against China. As the former chief GOP counsel on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Triplett detailed by section and paragraph which treaties and agreements the Chinese have violated in five recent sales to Pakistan and Iran.
China’s sale to Pakistan of 5,000 magnets that could be used to refine bomb-grade uranium and produce nuclear weapons is only the most recent and publicized case, he said. Two years ago the administration ducked another nuclear proliferation issue and bent over backward to avoid nailing China for an arms violation in selling missile parts to Pakistan, he asserted.
Joined by many in Congress who insist on penalties for China’s sales to Pakistan and earlier missile sales to Iran, the pro-Taiwan group wants strict punishment, including withholding $10 billion in credits to U.S. businesses dealing with China.
While that is the penalty called for in the non-proliferation agreement, a senior administration official described such a threat as tantamount to saying “Stop doing what you’re doing, or else I’ll shoot myself.”
Complicating the foreign policy discussions are America’s billion-dollar business interests that constitute a don’t-mess-with-China business lobby.
If Clinton approves a crackdown, the pro-business lobby is pressing the administration to waive the financial penalties–the $10 billion in credits–in order to preserve its interests and contracts with China. But that reaction, said the administration official, would suggest the U.S. is willing to accept any transgression to safeguard American profits.
Clinton vehemently criticized his predecessor, George Bush, for maintaining friendly relations with China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
But Clinton quickly found himself with the same policy dilemma, and he encouraged harmony–some dare call it appeasement–when he decided to “delink” the questions of human rights compliance with the annual June 3 renewal of most-favored-nation status. That date is one day before the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
The administration referred to its policy as one of “comprehensive engagement,” which means talking not only to China’s political leadership but engaging its military leaders and others. Critics say that “engagement” must have some goal or purpose.
Despite his warning over Taiwan, Perry acknowledged that involvement rather than punishment is the best way to influence Chinese behavior. He rejected the notion that the U.S. wants to contain China as it did with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War.
But the Beijing leadership believes that the motive behind U.S. actions is a new containment policy aimed at stunting China’s development in the next century by pursuing new agreements with rival powers along its border, especially Russia, Vietnam and Taiwan.
“Seeking to contain and confront China can only slow down the pace of positive change that is occurring there.” said Perry.
At the same time, he recognized disagreements over “China’s ongoing human rights violations” and admitted that “we will not try to isolate China over these issues. Even when we strongly disagree with China, we cannot make our entire relationship hostage to a single issue.”
China’s succession question–who will follow the 91-year-old Deng Xiaoping–has persisted since his political resurrection in 1976. More than ever, it magnifies any political change within China.
The inescapable conclusion, Perry said in his talk, is that China “is a power of global significance, not simply of regional significance.” And as a superpower, it decides which international rules it wants to observe and which it will ignore. At the same time, he warned China that the U.S. will ignore only so much.
The senior administration official said the more immediate problem now is the risk of miscalculation by Taiwan, China or the U.S.
Though China’s policy and planning is not guided by quarterly business reports nor even by four-year election cycles, its leaders are canny enough to see the advantage in pressing an American administration preoccupied by both profit statements and elections.
