EVEN for Bill Clinton, it was a remarkable turnaround. Indeed, Americans could be forgiven for scratching their heads and wondering how he moved from campaigning against the “Butchers of Peking” to proclaiming, at the recent Summit with Jiang Zemin, a “strategic partnership” with China (not a mere alliance, as with Japan). All this in a span of five years, with a brief stop for the confrontation over Peking’s saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait in March 1996.
Actually, the “strategic partnership” is less a shift in policy than a “debasing of language,” as one senior official conceded privately. Unfortunately, Congress was not in on the joke. Just days after the Chinese president returned to Peking, a package of legislation that is very tough on his regime passed in the House of Representatives. Rather than narrowing the gap between the Executive Branch’s managers of our China policy on the one hand and the public and its congressional representatives on the other, the Summit seemed only to bring it into sharper relief. While the Administration dreams of “strategic partnership,” Congress is looking for Chinese concessions on several issues and is increasingly concerned about Chinese threats. Think: One Country, Two Policies.
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