China should apologize to the US

Henry C.K. Liu hliu at mindspring.com
Mon May 17 09:22:31 PDT 1999


It is views like Safire's and Buckley's that justify Chinese anger. And such views are not in the minority in America at this moment. If the right wing thinks it's to America's interest to make China an enemy, they will success and may not live to regret it, along with the rest of us.

Henry C.K. Liu

May 17, 1999 New York Times

ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Cut the Apologies

After a week of whipping up hatred of Americans by accusing us of deliberately murdering Chinese journalists in Belgrade, President Jiang Zemin deigned to accept a call from The Great Apologizer.

For the fifth time, President Clinton apologized, expressed

regrets, sent condolences, kowtowed and groveled, begging

to be believed that we did not bomb China's embassy on

purpose.

But it is America that is owed an apology. After an accident

of war, we have been falsely accused of killing Chinese with

malice aforethought. That is a great insult, compounded by

the calculated trashing of our embassy by a bused-in mob

encouraged by police.

The truth is that Beijing's leaders, worried about

demonstrations on the 10th anniversary next month of their

Tiananmen massacre, are milking this mistake for all it is

worth.

By lying about our intent and suppressing coverage of our

prompt admission of error, the nervous rulers are diverting

their people's anger toward us and away from themselves.

By demanding we investigate the accident, they seek to

water down the current Congressional investigations of their

nuclear spying -- a series of penetrations of our laboratories

and political campaigns that was no accident.

By making Clinton beg forgiveness, they are able to cancel

human rights talks while extracting new trade concessions.

The deal: they will accept Clinton's apologies when he caves

in on their application to the World Trade Organization.

No wonder that no reputable diplomat would accept the

President's pleas to replace our fed-up ambassador in

Beijing. Clinton is now trying to appoint an admiral whose

amiable association with the Chinese military and U.S. arms

contractors will be closely examined by the Senate.

Though Clinton is softer than ever on China, he's taken a

hard line in resisting Congress's investigations into Beijing's

penetration of our nuclear labs and our political process. His

latest trick: the improper use of documents submitted for

intelligence declassification to prepare advance refutations of

evidence of security lapses.

The White House has delayed for four months the

three-volume report on security laxity by the House select

committee headed by Representative Chris Cox. Clinton

spinners are already distributing a packet of reprints of

derogations by offended scientists, China-defenders and

favorite journalists.

Cox has used the "clearance" delay to rewrite the turgid

prose and to enliven the report with photographs and

diagrams showing what missiles and satellites were stolen;

that might even awaken television interest.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Richard

Shelby and Robert Kerrey, is not about to hold still for the

abuse of clearance.

After it submitted one of its reports on nuclear lab laxity for

review to protect intelligence sources, it learned of a

refutation of that bipartisan report in work by the National

Security Council response machine.

The White House was told that the submission of documents

was for security clearance only. It was not to be used for (a)

advance policy review so that "rapid response" would occur

in the same news cycle as the reports' release, or for (b)

leakage of portions to the press for "inoculation" to later

reduce its impact as "old news."

The intelligence business is not the publicity business.

National security reports are not to be equated with the Starr

report about hanky-panky. The Shelby committee made

plain to the Berger Rapid-Apology Center that if this

undermining of inter-branch comity did not stop forthwith,

"we're going to zero out the N.S.C. staff budget." (By

withholding some $15 million, Congress could force the

spinners onto the Department of Defense payroll or cause

agonizing layoffs in the White House basement.)

In both House and Senate, bipartisan committees are

discovering serious intelligence weaknesses: too little analysis

of too much collection. "If there's a flare-up in Iraq, North

Korea or the Andes," worries an investigator, "we could not

handle it and Kosovo, too."

The most troubling breakdown is in counterespionage. The

F.B.I. and C.I.A., which are not blameless, are telling

Congress the weakest link is the Department of Justice.

What began as corrupt political protection became dangerous

national security laxity. Who will apologize for that?



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