As President Clinton began his controversial and long-awaited journey Thursday into the uncertain territory of U.S.-China relations, both sides are hoping to gain ground from a summit that promises at the very least to seal with goodwill the rocky relationship between the two nations.
Americans watching the “Clinton in China” spectacle on television for the next week or so, however, might wonder whether the visit is more sightseeing than statesmanship.
They will see images of Clinton visiting the ancient terra-cotta warriors in Xian, climbing the Great Wall, touring the new stock exchange in Shanghai and sailing downriver through the spectacular scenery of Guilin.
For U.S. officials this is not tourism; it’s engagement, the diplomatic term for a China policy that relies as much on symbolism as on substance to develop a relationship far too important to ignore yet still too fragile to yield substantive agreements.
“Don’t measure the Clinton visit on how many agreements are signed or how many toasts are made. Look at it in a broader context,” said David Shambaugh, head of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University. “The symbolism of it all is going to be very important.”
Clinton will try to demonstrate just how important China is, not by signing major agreements but by spending more time there than any president has ever spent visiting a single country since 1918: nine days, including one in Hong Kong.
Only an hour and 45 minutes of that time will be spent actually meeting with Chinese leaders. The remainder will consist of a diplomatic package tour of Chinese scenic highlights, ancient and modern, in which each photo opportunity has been chosen to make some kind of statement about China and its relationship with the United States.
“China will be on television in America every day,” said Tao Wenzhao, deputy director of the Institute of American Affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “We hope to convey a positive image of China to the American people.”
The hazards of attempting a visit filled with symbolism in a country where the media is tightly controlled also may become clear. There are no plans to broadcast live in China any Clinton events, including his joint press conference with President Jiang Zemin or his speech to students at Beijing University, his main opportunity to make a public gesture in support of human rights.
That will enable the Chinese to control the symbolism for their own people by filtering any messages they consider too bold or too sensitive, such as calls for democracy or criticisms of China’s human rights record.
“China is the stage for Clinton’s performance, but the audience won’t be Chinese. It will be the American people and the rest of the world,” said political analyst Wang Shan.
Initial hopes by the White House that Clinton would be able to reach out to ordinary Chinese during his visit have not materialized. China officials have refused requests for a town-hall-style public meeting, or for a radio address or phone-in debate. Even a planned breakfast with students was omitted from later schedules.
Clinton also won’t be meeting with any dissidents or intellectuals, a decision the White House said was made to protect the safety of dissidents.
“The kind of diplomatic jamboree that some of his advisers expected just isn’t possible here,” a Western diplomat said. “If he wants to meet the people, he’s in the wrong country. The average Joe Soap in China doesn’t get to meet his own leaders.”
The subliminal messages will begin as Clinton’s plane flies over Japanese airspace Thursday, making him the first U.S. president to visit China without paying a courtesy call on Tokyo. The decision not to stop over in Japan sends a powerful signal that America regards China as at least as important as Japan, worthy of a separate visit.
“It sends a very bad signal to the Japanese,” Shambaugh said. “Every U.S. president who has visited China before has stopped in Japan.”
(Perhaps in an effort to smooth things over, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright heads to Tokyo immediately after the summit, and the Japanese prime minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, has been invited to visit Washington in July.)
Clinton’s plane lands Thursday in Xian, the ancient capital of China, where he will be reminded of the nation’s long and glorious history at a welcoming ceremony mimicking those given to visiting emperors more than 1,000 years ago. While there, he will visit one of China’s oldest wonders, the 2,000-year-old army of 6,000 life-size terra-cotta warriors unearthed by a peasant in 1974.
Clinton’s arrival in China’s modern-day capital, Beijing, will begin, controversially, on the edge of Tiananmen Square, where he is to be received in the traditional arrival ceremony reserved for visiting heads of state.
If there is to be a defining image of the visit, it will be this: Clinton standing against the backdrop of the square that had come to symbolize the brutal suppression of the 1989 student uprising.
Most of the trip will be spent focusing on images that attempt to convey a more positive impression of a changing China. At the small but prosperous village of Xia He, he will promote the example of China’s emerging grass-roots democracy, in the form of the village elections, which have been taking place across the country over the past decade.
A high point of his visit to Beijing will be the address at Beijing University, whose students fueled the Tiananmen Square uprisings. If Clinton is to make any statement in support of human rights, it would be during this speech, analysts predict.
In Shanghai, Clinton will be shown a vision of the China of its leaders’ dreams: a fast-changing, rapidly developing metropolis of gleaming skyscrapers, private enterprise, new wealth, fashionable stores and trendy bars and clubs–a city Chinese leaders often say they hope to turn into the Manhattan of Asia, its financial and fashion capital.
“Here he will witness the booming new capital of China’s modernization drive,” Tao said.
Clinton’s last stop in mainland China is to take him along the Li River, outside Guilin, which has been the inspiration of Chinese poets and painters for centuries. Officials bill the event as an opportunity to emphasize the environment, an issue on which two of the world’s main offenders are trying to cooperate.
But it is perhaps in the small town of Yangshuo, downriver from Guilin at the end of his odyssey through mainland China, that the point Clinton is trying to make about his policy of engagement seems best to be illustrated.
A decade ago, this small rural town in the heart of some of the most beautiful scenery in the world was an isolated backwater. Then it was discovered by the Lonely Planet guidebook, which recommended that every tourist visiting China make an effort to visit.
Today, backpackers from Europe and America eat pizza and pancakes in Yangshuo cafes with names like “Mickey Mao’s,” “Planet Yangshuo” and “Internet Cafe.”
“We hope he will give good publicity so that more Americans come to visit,” said tour guide Yang Yue. “This could be very good for business.”
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