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 mericans
of Chinese descent contemplating a trip to China are not the only
ones who need a warning from the
Bush administration
about the PRC's ominous behavior. To be sure, the new travel alert
issued by the State Department seems fully warranted, given Beijing's
recent unexplained and unapologetic incarceration of four U.S. citizens
and permanent residents. But what about the rest of us? Just because
we don't plan to visit China for business, academic, or travel reasons
doesn't mean we're safe. In fact, given the Communist Chinese conduct
of late, a more generalized warning to the American people is in
order — and President Bush is the only one who can deliver
it with the authority that it requires, just as he is the one who
must set in train the necessary prophylactic actions.
The danger,
of course, is not confined to the willingness of the People's Liberation
Army to take down U.S. aircraft that provide early warning of Chinese
threats toward Taiwan and other American interests in East Asia.
Whether or not further talks take place on the "rules of the
road" — which the Bush administration had hoped would
prevent a recurrence of the recent unpleasantness over the EP-3
— we are likely to face an increasingly assertive effort on
the part of the PRC to intimidate or otherwise induce the United
States to refrain from operating in China's self-declared and ever-expanding
regional sphere of influence.
The reality
is that, over the long term, we are going to confront from Communist
China a far larger and ever more multifaceted threat to the American
homeland and people, as well as to our forces, allies, and equities
in the West Pacific. This is most evident in the effort that the
PRC has launched in recent years to create a credible capability
to attack the United States; today, it has underway the world's
largest intercontinental ballistic missile-modernization program
— weapons whose only purpose is to threaten this country with
mass destruction.
China is also
engaged in intensive espionage operations in this country and from
Cuba, designed to extract what few secrets we have left and to facilitate
PRC technology-theft and diversion efforts necessary to assure the
future competitiveness of the Chinese military and commercial sectors.
Chinese operatives are securing strategic beachheads in the Panama
Canal zone, the Spratly Islands, the Persian Gulf, and even in American
universities and communities. Its state-owned companies and governmental
entities are penetrating our capital markets, securing from unsuspecting
American investors, via global-growth and emerging-market funds,
billions of dollars with which to underwrite their increasingly
predacious military and economic campaigns.
President Bush
needs to acquaint the American people with such facts. He needs,
in addition, to advise them that these actions are being accompanied
— and justified — by Communist Chinese rhetoric that describes
the United States as "the main enemy." He needs to advise
America that Beijing's leaders perceive us as the only obstacle
to reasserting China's rightful place in the world, namely, as the
"Middle Kingdom" at the center of the universe. Finally,
he needs to tell the American people that the PLA's officers are
telling their troops that war with the United States is "inevitable"
and to prepare accordingly.
It is not,
of course, enough simply to provide a candid and long-overdue assessment
of the threat that Communist China is becoming. Nor will it be sufficient
to explain that Beijing has embarked upon such a course, not in
response to our actions, but for reasons that are both domestic
(e.g., to justify increased internal repression and to rally support
for the regime on nationalist grounds) and external (i.e., the need
to secure foreign energy supplies in order to sustain continued
Chinese economic growth).
Mr. Bush must
also devise and present an appropriate response. It should include
the following sorts of elements. The President should make a distinction
for the American people between our differences with the Communist
government of China and our attitude toward the Chinese people,
whom we believe both want and are entitled to the same basic liberties
that we hold dear. He should also establish publicly and unmistakably
in the context of the PRC, our determination, as he put it on March
4th, to ensure that we will "stand with" those who seek
freedom and "stand up" to those who would deny such freedom
to the people of China.
Toward that
end, the United States government should have as its objective de-legitimizing
and ultimately bringing down the Communist regime of China. This
strategic purpose should guide all other aspects of American policy;
it should be expressly endorsed in a presidential-decision directive
(classified, if necessary). Models for such a directive can be found
in those promulgated by President Reagan in the early 1980s that
contributed materially to the destruction of the Soviet Union.
An essential
element of such a campaign must be a vigorous public-diplomacy effort
of the sort that proved highly effective in alerting the citizens
of the Soviet Union to the truth about their government and, as
a result, undermining popular support for the Soviet regime in the
eyes of its people. This would not only help bolster dissident groups
within the PRC, but would also reinforce the message that the U.S.
wishes no harm to come to the people of China and hopes to see them
liberated.
As part of
a complementary effort to renew allied confidence in Asia, the United
States should go beyond rebuilding and expanding its military presence
in the region by making a point of publicly pursuing consultation
and other symbolic activities with the democratic states of Asia.
That means high-level visits and a concerted effort by the administration
to steer trade and investment their way. It also means that restrictions
on military-to-military relations with India, Indonesia, etc. should
be removed, or at least significantly relaxed. Our friends —
including Taiwan — should also get what China scholar Arthur
Waldron has called "most-favored-military" treatment (which,
in the case of Taiwan, means Aegis ships and the other weapons it
needs to defend itself). Certainly, none of them should enjoy a
less intimate and less constructive military-to-military relationship
than the U.S. currently maintains with the People's Liberation Army.
To be sure,
there will be those counseling against rocking the boat with China
in these ways; they will urge Mr. Bush to continue a policy of "constructive
ambiguity" about its intentions — and our responses to
its actions — of the sort favored by the Clinton administration
and other "friends of China." If, however, it would be
irresponsible to allow still more American citizens to tread into
harm's way in Communist China without a travel advisory, it would
be infinitely more reckless to continue our present drift toward
the conflict that Beijing clearly anticipates, without a proper
"heads-up" and without appropriate preparation. Only then
can we effect the necessary changes in China that will enable us
to dodge the trap doors into which the Communist leadership wants
us to fall.
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