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Avoiding Extremes in Our China Policy
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17854 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1990 |
2,595 Words |
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Paul H. Kreisberg
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The current American policy debate over China reflects another of the periodic dramatic swings in American attitudes toward that country that have characterized U.S. policy for over a century. We deal with China in extremes: with contempt or affection, love or have, as an ally or an enemy, in a close embrace or thrust away at a distance.
President Bush has been trying to avoid another in series of dramatic changes that have marked the Sino-U.S. association for over a century. He is fighting an uphill battle.
In the late 1930s and 1940s, China became first a symbol of resistance to Japanese imperialism and then a couragous World War II ally against Japan. In the 1950s, Chinese communists, America's foes in the Korean War, were the source of the concept of "brain-washing" and became standard villains in dozens of movies and novels.
The clock turned again in the 1960s and 1970s when Sino Soviet tensions created an opportunity for America to initiate a new, mutually beneficial strategic relationship with the Chinese communists.
The next decade was marked by bilateral flare ups over Chinese suppression of demonstrations by Tibetans and students for more democracy and civil rights. But far more striking was the rise in popular American sympathy and admiration for China, as tolerance for a wide range of social and economic reforms emerged in the People's Republic.
By the end of the 1980s, however, economic reforms were producing rapid growth but also a severe overheating of the economy, inflation corruption (official and private), and imbalances in personal and public benefit. Intellectual debate was stimulating new and fresh ideas but also feeding intellectual dissidence, cynicism, demands for new and fresh freedoms, and - above all - a decline in Communist Party influence and prestige. The values that Americans admired so much were, for a whole generation of old but still powerful party leaders, threatening the social, economic, and political stability of the country.
DOORS SLAMMED SHUT
The doors for popular protest were violently slammed shut when massive popular demonstrations, led by students and intellectuals and joined by some workers--in Beijing and on a smaller scale in over 20 other major cities--erupted in April and May 1989. The protests started in support of reform but rapidly and dangerously turned against individual leaders of the party. The regime was inept and needlessly brutal in dealing with the demonstrators, the demonstrators careless and rash in not seeing that they were going too far in challenging the very roots of power in China.
Ironically, it was the new openness of China that allowed hundreds of foreign TV and print media journalists to enter China to cover Mikhail Gorbachev's visit and thus enabled the violent suppression of the demonstrations to be seen with horror by hundreds of millions in the United States and around the world.
Popular American perceptions of China turned in a flash from admiration to harsh criticism. Members of Congress and editorial writers around the country asked, why should the United States do anything
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