On the State of Sino-US Relations

British writer Salman Rushdie wrote in The Satanic Verses, "Musa the grocer grumbled about the twelve wives of the Prophet, one rule for him, another for us." Just as the people of Rushdie's mythical Jahalia complain about a double standard imposed upon them by their leaders (he has 12 wives, they have 4), so do China and the United States complain about unequal treatment imposed upon one by the other. For example:

1. China wants the material goods of the United States; the United States says "no" because of environmental concerns.
2. The United States presses China to reduce hegemony in neighboring areas like the disputed Spratley Islands; yet the United States invades far-off Somalia, Iraq, and Haiti.
3. The United States complains about China's 98% software piracy rate, though the United States is the world's largest software pirating nation (by volume pirated).
4. The United States demands better human rights conditions in China, yet Amnesty International says that the United States itself violates human rights by maintaining the death penalty.

Despite these tensions, China and the US have maintained relations for over two decades now and had numerous summits. Lately, however, both governments have been moving towards what observers fear will be a "creeping Cold War." The mutual foreign policy mismanagement has occurred in 3 principle areas:

1. World Trade Organization membership for China. China applied for WTO membership in 1986 with the WTO's predecessor, the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). The United States has demanded China's entry as a developed nation, while China wanted to enter as a developing nation. Recently the US won huge, politically risky concessions from the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji. As David Lampton of Johns Hopkins writes, "the Clinton administration invited ... Zhu ... to Washington ... then sent [him] packing because the President wanted more concessions and to raise US trade barriers." One rule for them, another rule for us.
2. The Cox Report, a 909 page report released last month that accuses the Chinese of all sorts of espionage. The Chinese retort, quoted in Australian Financial Review last Thursday, says something like, "Yeah, like you're not spying on us!"
3. The straw that broke the camel's back was the US Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. U.S. Apologist-in-Chief Bill Clinton wagged his finger and said "I did not have sex with that woman." Then he realized that the Chinese were truly upset, and he replied, "Don't blame us; blame Milosevic." "How," one Chinese was quoted as saying, "can an organization that could find terrorist camps in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan not be able to identify the distinctive Chinese Embassy in Belgrade." In the absence of a US apology or explanation, one Chinese professor asked, "How could anyone be so sure that the same CIA that assassinated President Kennedy would not conspire to launch missiles at the Chinese Embassy?" As if to confirm this wild speculation, a Chinese newspaper reported that a US Presidential candidate said that the attack was deliberate. The candidate turned out to be Lyndon Larouche, who can be found every Saturday outside a Philadelphia K-Mart denouncing Alan Greenspan for "ruining the US economy." But here the Chinese agitprop machine was stoking the fire, much as US politicians were stoking the domestic fire with images of the US Embassy in Beijing under attack while Chinese police looked on.

Amid all this turmoil and mutual distrust, it's not surprising that, according to a story Saturday on the AP wires, Sino-US relations are at their worst since Tienenman. Indeed, Ralph Cossa of the Pacific Forum concluded, "the next generation of Chinese leaders will consider the Embassy attack, and how America responds to it, as a defining moment in much the same way that the current generation of U.S. leaders have been influence by Tienenman."

Now that both governments are reevaluating our relationship, the question for the US becomes a question of engagement or containment: should we continue democratic relations with China and facilitate the entrance of the Middle Kingdom into the world market, or should we try to contain China like we contained Russia and apartheid South Africa, and how we now contain Libya, Cuba, and Burma, with trade embargos, sanctions, military buildups, attempted CIA assassinations, travel restrictions, etc.? The question boils down to this: do we want to be friends with China (and engage them), or do we wish to be enemies (and contain them)? Even if you decide that we ought to contain China, you still must consider if it's even possible to contain what is the world's largest country, a permanent Security Council member, and a geographically strategic nation.

First, should we treat China as a friend or enemy? While being friendly towards China might not make them be friendly towards us, Joseph Nye, Dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard, assures us that if we "treat China like an enemy, ... that is what it will be." Indeed, he writes, trying to contain China would "[guarantee] ourselves an enemy." Today's Time magazine reaches a similar conclusion: "If we get hostile, they will get hostile. If both China and the U.S. give in to extremists in their capitals and let the relationship unravel, the worst-case scenario the [Cox] report presents just might come true." Why give the Chinese reason to build and test Nukes? Bottom line: containment produces Cold War II.

But what would be the other costs of not continuing to engage China? First, kiss goodbye the 400,000 American jobs that depend on US exports to China. Second, kiss goodbye any American leverage on issues like intellectual property protection, human rights, the environment, etc. When you try to contain a nation, you lose all leverage over that country's role in the international community. And this loss would come at a point when a sea change is occurring within China. While even some educated Chinese think the bombing is a CIA conspiracy, the younger generation is embracing the cosmopolitan values of the West, just as Nationalist leader Sun Yat-Sen did earlier this century. Indeed, writes the Asian Financial Review on Thursday, "The coming generation of cadres now remote from the Long March ... are now returning from their Ivy League universities with MBAs, in the way that Jiang and his generation came back from Moscow with their engineering degrees." Tomorrow's Chinese leaders, educated in America, are not the old hard-liners of the days of the Cultural Revolution, but rather shrewd businessmen who are ready to engage America, and ready to do business with us.

Our relations with China have thus arrived at a crossroads. We can continue to engage China and reap the benefits of a strategic partnership with one of the most powerful nations on earth, or we can attempt to contain China, guaranteeing ourselves Cold War II. We do have differences with China: WTO entry, the Cox Report, and the Embassy Bombing. However, in this time of mutual distrust, we can only resolve these issues with engagement. In resolving those differences, we must not allow ourselves to be open to the accusation of setting a double standard. The real Chinese anger after the bombing boils down to this: the US tells China not to be hegemonic, even in areas that they border, yet the United States perpetrates bold, outright hegemony in Serbia, a nation half a world from US borders. Perhaps that Chinese have a point: Is it right to maintain one rule for us, another rule for them? Clearly, in the wake of the bombing, a full explanation was needed immediately. The United States must clean up our act so that we do not appear hypocritical as we engage China and encourage them to do the same.