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Bush-league diplomacy mars Asian tour
By DAVID WALL
Special to The Japan Times
They have taken the Stars and Strips down in Tiananmen Square. Meanwhile, in the Great Hall of the People, U.S. President George W. Bush's visit is almost forgotten as the last meeting of China's National People's Congress before the 16th Party Congress in November has begun.
While Bush was on his tour of Northeast Asia, I was at a conference in England. The topic of our conference was the current state of Northeast Asian relationships. Participants were drawn from the great and the good of most East Asian states, including North Korea, and others interested in developments there. Naturally we watched the president's progress with interest. The consensus seemed to be that he did not do any more damage on top of that already done by his 'axis of evil' speech, except possibly in South Korea.
There were the usual gaffes, of course, which we have come to look forward to, or would if it were not for the terrible consequences that can result from them. His remark that he had discussed currency devaluation with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was a good one. The attempt to suggest that he had actually been discussing deflation was not convincing. The gaffe here, I am sure, was that he told the truth.
I am equally sure it was a genuine gaffe -- and not a considered political statement -- when Bush said, in response to a Chinese student's question in Qinghua University, that the U.S. would stand by the Taiwan Relations Act in its dealings with China over Taiwan. I am sure that he meant to say the three Sino-American communiques on Taiwan. He just got it wrong -- I hope.
One wonders how Americans would feel if visiting Chinese presidents went around saying 'May the spirit of Marx and Lenin be with you' or 'Mao bless you' as frequently as Bush says 'God bless you' and similar invocations of his deity. Visa application forms for China do not ask if you are a member of the Roman Catholic Church or any other prohibited cult. But visa forms for the United States do ask you to confess to being a communist.
I was in China shortly after U.S. President Bill Clinton's weeklong visit to China. At that time, everyone was talking about Clinton's speeches and actions. Last week hardly anyone mentioned Bush's 30-hour visit. It did not have much impact on the general public (though it did on the people who were forced out of his hotel to make way for him). After a series of difficult moments over the past 12 months, the China-U.S. relationship has settled down into one of uneasy mutual suspicion.
There is an interesting comparison to be made between Bush's recent 'axis of evil' State of the Union message and its Chinese equivalent, the 'Work Report,' which Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji read to the National People's Congress meeting in Beijing last week. The former concentrated on telling everybody what a rotten lot the rest of the world is. It didn't give much attention to domestic problems, such as those caused by Americans' taste for narcotics and their environment-damaging excessive energy consumption. In contrast, Zhu's speech focused on telling the Chinese what a rotten lot they were themselves and hardly made mention of foreigners.
Zhu's work report was basically a list of the domestic political problems that are frustrating the successful achievement of the economic reforms he has championed over the last 10 years. It was a long list that included: corrupt and venal cadres; incompetent bureaucrats who are failing to pay pensions and public-sector salaries in some areas; the continued spread of cults; and the failure of the structural reforms to provide employment to those made redundant in the reforms.
Bush's was basically a series of threats to states and movements that challenge or threaten to challenge U.S. hegemony.
Last week, delegates from all over China discussed the implications of the commitments made by Zhu and the State Council after they had pressed for and achieved China's membership in the World Trade Organization. Those commitments are quite onerous: Major structural shifts in the economy are being called for, especially in poorer areas least able to cope with such changes.
The U.S. has set aside tens of millions of dollars to monitor an economy that China is now committed to opening rapidly to ensure that it abides by the rules of the game that it has accepted. This will, for example, require a reduction in the protection of the steel industry, resulting in considerable downsizing as that protection is removed.
Meanwhile, the U.S. decided last Tuesday to substantially increase the protection afforded its already pampered steel industry. This is to help the industry struggle to meet competition resulting from the U.S.' own WTO commitments. Breaking the hallowed most-favored-nation principle of nondiscrimination, the U.S. specifically targeted the new protection against China.
I recall that, when bilateral WTO negotiations with the U.S. were in trouble due to the severity and unreasonableness of the U.S. demands, an American colleague told the Chinese trade negotiation team to sign whatever the Americans wanted and then just do what they do with respect to compliance. This, he said, would leave a lot of scope for protection. It seems he was right.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently asked a rhetorical question: Does the U.S. need a foreign policy? Yes, it does. Its currently unchallenged status as the world's only economic and military superpower gives it an awesome responsibility to provide positive and genuine leadership. This does not mean staying in front and following your own interests wherever they lead, whatever the consequences for others. That is not leadership.
Diplomacy is difficult. As a minimum it means trying to convince people that what you are doing is at least as much in their interests as it is in yours. The last few weeks suggest that Bush and his advisers on Northeast Asian affairs have not taken this message on board.
David Wall teaches at the Center of International Studies at the University of Cambridge and chairs the China Discussion Group at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
The Japan Times: March 11, 2002
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