Slate's Bizbox
frame game: How you look at things.

Chinese Twins

By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, April 12, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET

Every time the United States negotiates with China, a war of words breaks out. On one side are Americans who demand a "principled" hard line against China's aggression. On the other side are Americans who advocate "constructive engagement" to coax China toward economic and political freedom. In the spy plane standoff that ended this morning, the hawks and engagers were at each other's throats again. But their enmity was, as always, dishonest. They need each other. Without the hawks, the engagers would have no sticks to wave at China. And without the engagers, the hawks would have no carrots to withdraw.

The latest charade began Friday, when the Weekly Standard editorial, co-authored by editor Bill Kristol, denounced "the profound national humiliation that President Bush has brought upon the United States" by expressing his regret at the death of a Chinese pilot in the spy plane incident. Calling advocates of engagement "appeasers," the editorial assailed Bush's "weakness," "fear," and "capitulation." On the weekend talk shows, the engagers fired back. Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell excoriated the Standard editorial. Cheney called it "one of the more disreputable commentaries I've seen in a long time" and warned that such rhetoric might "inflame" the U.S.-China standoff.

It's true that Bush's advisers didn't enjoy being accused of weakness. And it's true that they didn't want to let emotions in both countries spin out of control. But that didn't deter them from putting the Standard's tirade to good use. In every TV interview, administration officials tried to scare China by playing up outrage on the right, in Congress, and among the American public. The message to Beijing was: If you don't release our crew, you'll empower the anti-China hard-liners we've been restraining.

The telling pattern in the comments of U.S. officials throughout the standoff was their indirection. Rather than criticize China, American politicians professed sad concern that other politicians and constituencies, furious at China's behavior, might force the United States to retaliate. Administration officials warned of what Congress might do. Members of Congress warned of what their colleagues might do. Constructive engagers, alluding to polls, warned that their pragmatism might be overwhelmed by American nationalism. Powell's hand-wringing performance on Face the Nation was worthy of an Oscar:

Congressional delegations are canceling their trips to China. … They're also saying, "You know, Secretary Powell, you'll have a much more difficult time with, say, getting another permanent normal trading relations bill through." … When they do come back [from recess], if this has not been resolved … there will be action. There will be a great sense of outrage. … It's affecting the environment that we will be facing when we take the [Taiwan arms] sale up on Capitol Hill, if there is a perception that China is not acting in a responsible and reasonable manner. So even though we're keeping it separate, I can't help but say to the Chinese that it could become linked in the overall political climate.

To what extent were Powell's engagers and Kristol's hawks sincere in their quarrel? Certainly less than they conveyed on the Sunday morning shows, which they knew the Chinese would watch closely. The day afterward, at an American Enterprise Institute forum, Kristol conceded that his editorial might help Powell and Cheney:

It strengthens them diplomatically, because now they can go to the Chinese government and say, "Hey, if you guys don't come through with these people very, very soon, we have all these insane right-wingers out there frothing at the mouth, wanting to arm Taiwan and launch a trade war, and these guys represent millions of infuriated Americans who are about to take to the streets and call their congressmen." Would that it were so. But if the Bush administration wants to say that in their private diplomacy with the Chinese government, that's fine, too.

Former Defense Department official Richard Perle, who associated himself with Powell's side of the debate, endorsed Kristol's theory. "I like to think that the Chinese in Beijing, trying to figure out what we're doing, have decided that the president … can't hold Bill Kristol off much longer. And so maybe that will accelerate the process." Kristol and Perle were joking about the Standard's prestige. But they weren't joking about using indignation on the American right to scare China.

If the engagers need the hawks in this way, it's just as true that the hawks need the engagers. Look at the sanctions the hawks propose to apply to China. "It is essential that the Chinese be made to pay a price for their actions," huffs the Standard. "The United States must respond in ways that directly affect China's interests. Congress can do its part easily: by rejecting China's most-favored-nation trade status when it comes up for renewal later this spring." On the Today show, Kristol elaborated: "We have a huge amount of leverage over Beijing. They desperately want the president to go there in October. They desperately want to have the Olympics. They desperately want to continue with most favored nation status. … We have a host of relationships with them that can begin to be cut back."

Yes, we do. But the only reason those relationships can be cut back is that we built them in the first place. If the Standard had gotten its way, there would be no MFN trade status to retract. If Bush had ruled out a trip to China and had committed the United States to oppose China's bid for the Olympics, none of that "leverage" would exist. Yes, we could have told the Chinese that if they didn't release our crew, they'd be even less likely to get a trade agreement or a presidential visit or the Olympics. But withholding a favor you're already withholding doesn't pack the same punch as taking back a favor that has been offered or has come to be expected.

To the hawks, Sino-American relations are about addiction. "The Chinese believe, with good reason, that the American business community has a hammerlock on American policy toward China, and that Congress will never dare cut off American business's access to the Chinese market," the Standard charged Friday. "Congress has a chance to prove that … the United States can break this addiction." Five days later, the American crew is coming home, thanks to Chinese anxiety that the impasse might have jeopardized China's blossoming economic and political relations with the United States. Addiction, it turns out, is a two-way street.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Reader Comments From The Fray:


We were out the day before yesterday tying yellow ribbons around our trees in sympathy for our people being held in China, when lo and behold my youngest says, "Hey Mom look!" She was pointing at the box of ribbons. The damned ribbons were made in China.

--Mr Knowitall

(To reply, click here.)



I grow weary of the incessant solipsism of that discourse. Everything is always about us. The incident with the spy plane, we are assured, was a belated retaliation for the bombing of the PRC embassy in Belgrade. There's no actual evidence of this, but everyone gets to nod sagely. Or it's about how much the Chinese need us.

Could the incident possibly be about them? For example, could it have been the regime's strategy for deflecting the avalanche of popular invective prompted by the government's lame obfuscations after a deadly explosion at an elementary school killed scores of children? Isn't it an age old trick of governments everywhere to roll out foreign demons whenever the peasants are coming up the drive armed with pitchforks and scythes?

Could the incident have been the product of China's own, equally disingenuous, dance between soft and hard liners? Or perhaps it was a rap on our knuckles after Rumsfeld declared that U.S. defense policy should be reoriented toward fighting a future war with China. Perhaps. But we'll never know.

--Andrew Goodwin

(To reply, click here.)


 Working in rural China one gets a different flavor of current events. Discussions about politics in groups are still rare but one on one discussions are possible. Here is what I found:

The overwhelming impression is that the whole standoff will be used by the U.S. to sell more sophisticated weapons to Taiwan. Therefore the situation has been created by the U.S. The U.S. uses two standards. If a Chinese airplane would spy along the U.S. coast all hell would break loose. Of course the U.S. soldiers stranded in Hainan are not treated like tourists because they are not tourists, they are spies. The U.S., a relatively small country with a short history, still has to learn a lot. Like all spoiled children sometimes you can only teach them with a stick.

--Lseidlein
 (posting from Zhengding, Hebei province, China.)

(To reply, click here.)


Can we take Saletan's article one step further? Did we invent a Chinese good cop and a Chinese bad cop to mirror our own hawks and engagers? It seems that the opacity of Chinese decision-making had our pundits making up scenarios about what was going on. China's actions were so hard to rationalize as seemingly against their own interest that we heard about power struggles between Chinese military hawks and political engagers. An apology was important so that the political leaders could defeat the more hawkish elements who wanted a trial. Was this real, or are we so ingrained to this style of confrontation, that we invented it? Was there any evidence for this, or were they all bad cops?

--Cato the Censor

(To reply, click here.)

 (4/11)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Assessing Sarah Palin
| Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, John Podesta and others weigh in.
Colbert King: She's No HillaryEditorial: Is She Ready for This?
PLUS » PostPartisan: Quick Takes from Opinions