But the aide’s lament should not be ignored: style is crucial, especially when dealing with the “face”-conscious Chinese. And this administration’s style has, too often, been ad hoc and unintelligible. The trouble began in the 1992 campaign, when Clinton did precisely what Dole chose not to do: he played politics with the China issue, winning points with Democratic Party constituencies – labor unions and human-rights groups – by lambasting George Bush for maintaining normal trade relations (most-favored nation means normal) and “codd[ling] tyrants” in Beijing. This proved an untenable position after Clinton assumed office: too many American export-industry jobs were at stake to risk an all-out trade war. Beijing knew this, and was able to ignore the administration’s first ploy, a half-hearted linkage between “progress” on human rights and continued most-favored-nation status. Warren Christopher tried to “negotiate” this impasse during his only visit to China, in the spring of 1994, and was humiliated by his hosts, who chose the occasion to arrest the leading Chinese dissident, Wei Jingsheng.
But then, Christopher was probably doomed from the start with the Chinese. He was best known in Beijing for having been humbled by the Taiwanese in 1978, pelted with stones and tomatoes as he delivered Jimmy Carter’s message that America was breaking ties (in order to establish relations with the mainland). “A guy who’d take that sort of abuse isn’t the sort of person the Chinese are going to respect,” says former ambassador James Lilly. Christopher’s halting, diffident personal style didn’t help. And his misguided obsession with the Middle East – Chinese diplomats inevitably cite the secretary’s 20-odd attempts to woo Syria’s Assad and his lone Beijing visit – hasn’t helped either.
There have been other embarrassments. The uneven treatment of Taiwan and its president, Lee Teng-Hui; the clumsy American effort to stop a Chinese ship that wasn’t carrying illegal chemicals to Iran; Christopher’s ill-concealed disapproval of a respected, Bush-appointed ambassador, W. Stapleton Roy (and the failure to replace Roy with an emissary Beijing considered worthy). Granted, the Chinese aren’t easy to deal with – especially these past few years, as the struggle to succeed Deng Xiaoping paralyzed the leadership. But American ineptitude has made a bad situation worse. It has led the Chinese to conclude the United States is, at once, blustery, inattentive and irresolute. And that belief may be at the heart of Beijing’s inaction on issues ranging from IPR piracy to illegal arms sales (like $4 million worth of AK-47 rifles, exposed by the FBI), as well as the growing Chinese conviction that the United States is an adversary, mostly interested in “containing” China.
How might a more attentive president have behaved? The big opportunity probably came, and went, in 1994: if Clinton had personally taken part in the negotiations – which were, in dollar and long-run national-security terms, as important as NAFTA – he might have wowed the Chinese and had the leverage to quietly swap permanent most-favored-nation status for major Chinese trade concessions, including stricter patrol over IPR and arms sales, plus greater market access. (Those who believe that significant human-rights concessions were possible are deluding themselves.) But who knows? It’s possible Beijing was so transfixed by Deng’s quasi-demise that no one had the authority to make a deal. It’s also possible the anarchy in China is so great (especially in the south, and among the hot-wired children of high-ranking officials) that no IPR or arms-control deal could be enforced. Still, at least one Clinton administration official now agrees with Dole’s complaint that a more regular, attentive relationship – punctuated by presidential summits and visits from cabinet officers – is needed. Warren Christopher said so in a speech on May 17. But he didn’t say when he’d be going back to Beijing. And Bill Clinton has still never been there.
