[Stratfor's elaboration of the China side of the equation]
12 April 1999
Reflections on the Summit
Summary
U.S. President Bill Clinton and China's Premier Zhu Rongji have met.
It was a civil meeting, which made it a triumph. Nothing was settled,
nothing was discussed but the public recriminations were minimal. It
reminds us of two former lovers in the process of breaking up, full of
recrimination, but trying to be civilized about it all, at least in
public.
Analysis
The meeting between Bill Clinton and Zhu Rongji went as well as could
be expected under the circumstances. Certainly, everyone worked very
hard to make the meeting more successful than the disastrous visit to
China by Madeleine Albright. But "as well as can be expected" is not
high praise these days, because expectations were so low. The miracle
was that the talks went as well as they did and that they did not
explode in acrimony. As we saw at the joint press conference, that was
a result, in part, only of the self-restraint of the principals
involved.
We have talked extensively in the past about the core problems in the
U.S.-China relationship. They have to do with the shifting interests
and relationships of both China and the United States after the Asian
meltdown. Economic problems have turned China economically inward, in
the sense that it must become more self-sufficient in its capital and
credit generation. That process creates inevitable social tensions in
all countries, but in China, huge, diverse and divided, the social
pressures are particularly telling and the social solutions
particularly repressive.
This has led to a major shift in atmospheric. A year or two ago, the
general perception of China in the United States, and in much of the
world, was that it was a communist society that had, for all practical
purposes, transcended communism. While the Party remained in place and
the political structure remained formally monolithic, the vision of
China was of a nation in a process of dramatic liberalization without
the inconvenience of even a velvet revolution. China was market
driven, pluralistic and becoming more liberal every day.
The shift in social policy has led to a general reevaluation of China
as a country that is increasingly repressive, anti-democratic, and
brutal toward ethnic minorities like the Tibetans or Xinjiang's
Moslems. There is a sudden realization that China is, in fact, a
communist country and not an evolving liberal democracy. The same
people who celebrated China's transformation are shocked to discover
that China has changed less than imagined. The Chinese, for their
part, are shocked at the world's response to their repression because
they had never claimed to have given up communism, democratic
centralism or the dictatorship of the proletariat. All that Deng had
said was that economic growth and modernization were critical to the
survival of communism in China and that if the introduction of market
reforms were necessary to stabilize socialism in China, so be it. The
West decided to view a tactical shift as a moral revolution. Now, the
Chinese were not so naïve as not to see what was happening, and they
helped the West along in its delusions if it generated investment,
markets and joint ventures. But it was all tactical. As tactics change
so does reality.
Of course, on a deeper level, there are few in the United States who
genuinely care about human rights in China. There is a coterie of
dedicated human rights activists and many of them are sincere. Others
make a good living generating reports on human rights violations. But
few in the corporate or government world have a genuine concern about
human rights in China. What has changed is economic. When there were
opportunities for money making in China, corporate and government
officials basically told the human rights lobbies to put a lid on it.
When constituents were making major investments in China and reaping
rewards, they told their congressmen to keep human rights discussions
to a minimum. With money being made in China, human rights violations
were less frequent. Today, there are far fewer people making money in
China and far less motivation to tell congressmen to put a lid on it.
So the pendulum is allowed to swing to criticism.
In other words, human rights in China is a non-issue in the United
States while there are more important issues on the table, like making
money. It surfaces when money making opportunities decline. And that,
of course, is the point. As Marxists like to say, ideology is merely
the superstructure of underlying objective class relations. As the
objective relationship shifts, ideology does as well. Substituting
nations for classes, the same thing can be said. This applies to a
host of issues. As the objective economic relationship between the
United States and China deteriorates, the question of Chinese
espionage emerges. So does U.S. interference in internal Chinese
affairs. So does the issue of Taiwan and weapons sales. And on and on.
Issues that were burning issues a few years ago become unimportant.
Consider the urgent issue of Chinese membership in the World Trade
Organization. Robert Rubin said about that: "Although the deal wasn't
closed, this was a very positive process with respect to getting WTO
agreement on commercially acceptable terms." Agreement had been
reached on a number of issues, including agriculture, insurance and
telecommunications. Unfortunately, differences remained on banking,
securities and audio-visual issues. In other words, anything having to
do with money, transparency, audited national and banking statistics
and intellectual property was left open. That's obvious and
inevitable, since those are the issues that are left after the Asian
economic crisis and are intractable. China is not going to open its
banking and securities business to competition, nor is China going to
forego the massive cash flow from pirated goods. Put differently, if
China couldn't get into the WTO two years ago, why in the world would
it be able to, or want to, get in now?
U.S.-Chinese relations are marking time. We are in the interregnum
between the old era that ended in 1998 economically and geopolitically
and the new era. Both sides are at a loss as to what to say to each
other. It reminds us of two former lovers, once in a passionate,
tempestuous affair, meeting after the romance ended. The passion is
gone, the recriminations come easily to the surface, but both are too
civilized to brutalize each other in public. They are enemies, but can
neither admit it to themselves or the world. But there is hidden venom
in every polite phrase.
The affair is over. China has a new flirtation and it is Russia. How
far that affair will go, how passionate it will be is open to
question. To push the analogy further, what do two former lovers of
the same person have in common? Answer: the desire for revenge. China
and Russia both feel betrayed. Until they define their relationship
with each other, all U.S.-Chinese summits will be exercises in boredom
and discomfort.
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