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tendency in official Washington in the wake of incidents like Chinese
interference with a U.S. military-
surveillance
aircraft is to try to "contain" the damage. Diplomats
and policy-makers tend to concern themselves narrowly with the immediate
task at hand — expediting the release of the 24 Americans now
held hostage and their EP-3 that was, at least until its arrival
in China, chock-a-block with sensitive intelligence-collection gear.
Were the Bush
administration to confine itself to such tactical responses to the
present crisis, however, it would be making a grave error. American
policy should be guided instead by the far-reaching strategic considerations
brought to bear by this episode: China is engaged in a determined
effort to accelerate what it perceives to have been the United States'
waning influence in East Asia over the past decade and to assume
the role of regional overseer. Neither American interests nor those
of our regional allies — nor, for that matter, those of the
Chinese people — will be served by accommodating Chinese aggression.
What is needed
is for Mr. Bush to adopt a response geared toward the pattern of
behavior displayed by the downing of our plane. Such a response
would involve a number of measures:
For starters,
the president should use this occasion to make clear to the American
people that the PRC is acting in an increasingly belligerent manner
not only toward U.S. military vessels, aircraft, and personnel,
but also toward allied democracies in the Western Pacific and East
Asia. Taiwan is the most obvious, but hardly the only friend of
this country to have been threatened by Beijing. Philippine territory
has been taken over by armed Chinese forces; the PRC appears to
be abetting the turmoil fracturing Indonesia; and Vietnam continues
to fear that China will once again lash out in its direction.
Then there
are the countries increasingly at risk from China's ballistic missiles
and/or weapons of mass destruction — especially the weapons
that the PRC is selling to rogue state clients around the world.
Israel, India, South Korea, Japan, Europe, and even the United States
are within range of missiles built, deployed or sold by the PRC,
or adapted from its technology with Chinese help. Senior People's
Liberation Army officers have even taken to explicitly threatening
American cities like Los Angeles with devastating attacks. Mr. Bush
needs to talk about these threats as well as his commitment to defend
the American people, their forces overseas, and their allies.
The president
should establish clearly that the United States is going to remain
a force to be reckoned with in East Asia. This message is a necessary
corrective to the impression left by his predecessor, and is vital
to stopping the geopolitical equivalent of tectonic shifts that
have led some in South Korea, Japan, and even Taiwan to opt for
appeasement of Beijing over resistance. The president needs to demonstrate
that we will continue to monitor aggressive Chinese behavior through
all means available and that we will maintain an increased U.S.
military presence in the region for the foreseeable future.
We must also
increase the ability of our friends in East Asia to provide for
their own defense. First and foremost, this means approving the
package of arms sales sought by Taiwan and deemed by the Bush Pentagon
to be required for the island's security in the face of the growing
threat posed by offensive PLA forces arrayed against the Republic
of China. Aegis air-defense destroyers, Patriot anti-missile systems,
and submarines must all form part of the deal — whether the
Chinese ultimately return our EP-3 and its crew or not. Until such
systems are delivered, however, the United States should adapt its
own Aegis ships as quickly as possible so as to provide some interim
missile defense for Taiwan pending the delivery of her own self-protection
capabilities.
Most important,
President Bush should adopt the same strategic course Ronald Reagan
that implemented two decades ago against the monstrous Communist
empire of his day — the Soviet Union. This would entail a strategy
not of containment, but of "roll-back," aimed at denying
the odious regime in Beijing the political legitimacy, the financial
underwriting, and the military advantages of "partnership"
with the United States — and thus increasing the costs of PRC-repression
tactics at home and adventurism abroad.
No Olympics
should be held in China as long as authoritarianism rules. No Chinese
government entity or state-owned company engaged in the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction, espionage, abuses of human rights,
or religious freedoms should be able to secure funds on the U.S.
capital markets from unwitting American investors. And the PLA should
be denied the considerable espionage opportunities that arise from
so-called military-to-military contacts and should no longer be
able to acquire nuclear weapons-relevant supercomputers, missile
technology, and other potentially deadly equipment from the United
States.
Have no doubt:
Helping the Chinese people liberate themselves from Communist despotism
will be more difficult than was the job of taking down the USSR.
The extent of China's penetration of the West is far greater than
was true of the Soviet Union; Beijing's influence and agents are
much more widespread. Still, part of the reason that Beijing attacked
our plane was in furtherance of its classic social-engineering campaign
— whereby external threats (even manufactured ones) are used
to promote support for the regime and to suppress dissent. The fact
that the Chinese are growing increasingly restive is the best hope
for making common cause with them in achieving a transformation
of China. It is also the best hope for avoiding a conflict with
the United States that China's leaders clearly seem determined to
foment.
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