Finally, a Pragmatic Approach to China

Washington has finally learned the value of pragmatism... at least when it comes to dealing with China. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to avoid needlessly insulting Beijing by harping on human rights reflects a real maturation in our China policy. Instead of aggravating our largest creditor, American politicians have come to grips with the fact ideological debates are best kept at home. The Chinese came to this realization about 10 years ago -- one has to wonder what took us so long to learn the same lesson.

Pelosi's official silence on the human rights issue comes three months after Hillary Clinton set a precedent conservative ideologues are still bemoaning. Rather than confront Beijing with the usual litany of human rights complaints during her February 2009 trip to China, the new Secretary of State chose to focus on the global economic crisis, climate change and regional/international security threats. Clinton's comment on this new approach is telling, "We have to continue to press them" on human rights. "But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crisis."

In remarking on this relatively abrupt change in Washington's "normal" approach to Beijing, a Washington Post reporter opined, "Clinton's willingness to break a diplomatic taboo -- generally U.S. officials will claim to seek progress on human rights, even if they may not mean it -- appears to be part of a determined effort by the new administration to clear the linguistic fog of international diplomacy."

Other pundits were not as kind. In an editorial titled "Not So Obvious," the Washington Post declared, "Ms. Clinton's statement will have an effect: It will demoralize thousands of democracy advocates in China, and it will cause many others around the world to wonder about the character of the new U.S. administration." Anne Applebaum, a syndicated columnist was even more scathing. "A cozy relationship with China's current rulers won't guarantee everlasting Asian stability... President Obama was right, in his inaugural address, when he told 'those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent' that they should know they are 'on the wrong side of history.' Now, he and his secretary of state need to enact practical policies to drive home that rhetorical lesson."

And, the Wall Street Journal offered this comment, "At best, Mrs. Clinton's comment is a serious rookie mistake. At worst, it's a slap to dissidents in China, including at least 12 who were placed under house arrest during her visit."

I provide this response to Clinton's remarks as an indication of the degree to which Cold War perspectives continue to frame Washington's foreign policy dialogue. (Think I'm kidding? In her column on Clinton's trip Applebaum argues, "Grandiloquent human rights speeches... have been a hallmark of American foreign policy since at least 1956, when we didn't come to the aid of Hungarians taking part in a rebellion we helped incite.")

What's important to understand here is that Washington's periodic focus on human rights is globally perceived as a poor veil for broader criticism of a competing political system -- one whose values do not explicitly mirror our own. That said, occasionally someone slips and comes close to blatantly stating this is the case. For instance, in the Wall Street Journal editorial on Clinton's remarks we find the following comment: "Beijing's bad rights record already interferes with U.S.-China ties. The same nontransparent judicial system that jails dissidents can hurt U.S. businesses and businessmen." In other words, for some self-declared proponents of liberal democracy and free markets we're not just concerned about human rights; we believe the Chinese may be a fundamental threat to our way of life.

This jingoistic poppycock needs to stop. While the Chinese regime certainly suffers human rights shortfalls -- the Bush administration effectively ended our ability to assume a self-righteous position on this front. And former vice president Cheney's recent campaign to defend this record is doing nothing to improve the situation.

In fact, while American politicians are engaged in a bizarre debate over the utility and necessity of ignoring or violating our laws so as to protect national security, the Chinese are quietly seeking to correct their own problems. In April 2009, Chinese authorities released the government's first-ever working plan on human rights protection. Titled the National Human Rights Action Plan of China, the document pledges progress on a wide array of economic, political and social issues.

Beijing's economic promises include a right to work, right to basic living conditions, and a right to education. Political concerns covered in the document include rights of the person -- a prohibition on extortion of confessions by torture -- right to a fair trial, and right to oversee state implementation of laws and regulations. Social rights to be addressed include women's rights, senior citizen rights, and the rights of the disabled.

I realize it's tempting to dismiss this document as little more than propaganda, but the very fact Beijing felt it was necessary to publish such a statement speaks volumes about where the Chinese leadership believes they should head. This candor is even evident in the human rights plan. In the document's introduction Beijing admits "China has a long road ahead in its efforts to improve its human rights situation." The Republican Party Cheney claims to represent has yet to be so forthcoming.

In sum, we should welcome the pragmatism evident in Secretary of State Clinton and House Speaker Pelosi's decision to abandon useless diatribes about China's human rights record. Washington's employment of this Cold War rhetoric certainly did not work in the past -- and is even more unlikely to be fruitful in the future. Instead we should privately praise the Chinese leadership for its efforts on this front and then turn to the real issues at hand... fostering a close working relationship with Asia's most important government.

Comments

[arvay]

Maybe at long last we are going to quit harping on the problems of others and fix our own, starting with Guantanamo and making sure there are no more Abu Grabs.

Starting with President Wilson, we adopted the long-standing British pr trick of pretending that our power grabs and imperial lusts are an expression of a benevolent wish to spread love and democracy around the globe.

Fans of Band of Brothers: the US did not fight WWII because we were horrified at Nazi racism. We had Jim Crow and a segregated Army, and many states had implemented similar "eugenics" policies.

German industry plus Russian resources was a combo that had to be stopped.

Why didn't we attack the Russian dictatorship as well? Because wise heads in Washington knew they would be a manageable threat, mauled and seriously crippled by war losses and that communism would never provide an attractive alternative to capitalism.

The point is not to endorse oppression, but to stop debasing democracy and freedom by using them as some cheap and insincere cover story for avarice and power games.

Our values of democracy and humanism are actually the best course for humanity -- but not because we and some of our friends have them. Like science, they have no nationality.

They need to stand on their own. Especially we need to stop using them as a hypocritical excuse for stupidities such as the Iraq war and as a way to browbeat and arm-twist.

[Dr Manhattan]

Anderson and other China apologists really sicken me. They sprout the same lame mantra over and over about how things are changing and all the world has to do is turn their back on Chinese abuses until they work them out. I suspect they don't care much about the Chinese as much profit to be made as supposed "China Hands" working companies with a vested interest in Chinese business.

Well here's the Chinese response to this pie in the sky thinking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/world/asia/28china.html?_r=1

BEIJING — In a marked departure from past practices, Beijing legal authorities have threatened to complicate or deny applications to renew the legal licenses of at least 18 of the city’s best-known civil-rights lawyers, two human-rights advocacy groups have charged.


I hope Anderson will respond on reports like this, which are not unusual.

[jeffreyindc]

Especially for those of you in NYC. Those endless advertisements of that poor dead Chinese woman's body on every block of your city, stripped of her very skin, as well as her dignity - and not a word of protest. What type of cruelty and indignities are we willing to find acceptable to our fellow human beings? I refuse to accept this concept that the Chinese people should be allowed to be oppressed by Communist totalitarianism, in forced labor camps, and in sweat shops as virtual slaves while Western nations look the other way about the endless human rights abuses. The Chinese people are not second class human beings. There are no second class human beings - we all have the universal human rights of equality and liberty. We must not allow the Chinese people to be forsaken. Those who are responsible for equality and liberty must give a voice to ensure that our fellow human beings in China and around the world are unforsaken.

[FairTalk]

The only thing greater than the ignorance demonstrated in your comment, is the latent racism, and self righeous superiority complex you so magnificently manifest.

[Rog49Thomas]

If you haven't noticed it, there is a strange political phenomenon in our country.

When a party is out of power in the Executive Branch, it develops a very robust human rights rhetoric re the PRC. When it controls the EB, it suddenly develops a profound respect for pragmatism and realism.

Some cynics out there say it's just to fool the rubes for domestic purposes. But we all know that when Bush #1 was promoting stern action against the PRC for Tianamen, it secretly sent two high level emissaries to the PRC to advise them "not to worry we really didn't mean it".

There is an answer of course and that is we should hold the PRC to the same high moral standards we apply in our treatment of both foreign and domestic detainees.

When the PRC applies the high principles enunciated in the Kubark Manual, human rights in the PRC will have taken quite a giant step forward.

[veritasor]

Well, raising the issue maybe hypocritical before, but now US has as many if not more Human Rights problems. Maybe the Chinese should ask the Speaker one question: "what and when do you know?".

[TJCole]

Oh we showed Red China that we would sell out any and all of our principles when Scowcroft two weeks after Tiananmen Square was there toasting now President Hu the murderer in charge of the slaughter of thousands there who yearned for liberty...

How's that pragmatic enough for you...!

[KPinSEA]

Our policy should be cautious engagement with China while minimizing the damage to our own economy if theirs should crumble.

The prosperity of tens of millions built on abandoning promises Mao made to hundreds of millions is a risky business. The Party itself has no ideological basis for existing today as a single party police state, and has traded the egalitarianism promised the masses 50 years ago for enrichment of the elite and a fragile new middle class on the backs of those hundreds of millions still mired in peasantry and having their social safety net taken away to buy PLA bigwigs summer homes and Bentleys.

They're in a race between reform and revolt .... I don't see reform winning at the moment.

[GoodwithWood]

Democracy must evolve in a society, one can’t force it on another at the end of a gun barrel.

[FairTalk]

You are right, but I am not sure the US wants China to develop a vibrant democracy. That would really be threatening!

[tpc616]

Keep in mind that ALL East Asian countries started out under strict one-party rule: South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong (by UK) and Taiwan, and Singapore still is.

[FairTalk]

There are other parties in China, and they do hold seats in the Congress, it's just because the CCP has always held a majority that China is portrayed as a one party state. That is quickly believed without fact checking, because we have all been mis educated about what goes on in China, because of latent racial bias in our MSM. You can easily check this out yourself.

[Neanderthal5]

Thanks for your openness. There is not much of it left. It's all been substituted for insanity and propaganda.

We view Democracy as the alpha and omega of politics. But, Service by government to its people collectively is more important. The Chinese have been responsive to its people. In their last earthquake, they were attentive to everyone's needs.

In our great democracy, when Katrina fell upon the New Orleans Area, our great government abandoned them, used KBR to kill anyone looting, and turned all helpers away from the area. Real smart. And now we pretend to care? This government is in self-destruct mode. These wars are capitalist wars of profit and not human rights.

[mikefina]

Interesting how Speaker Pelosi ignores decades of Chinese gulags, political executions and human rights abuses, yet has no problem with hectoring AMERICA about minor transgressions--up to and including the abuses she signed off on.

She may be relevant because of her speakership, but she is not credible. Not now, not ever again.

[FairTalk]

Chinese gulags? Please. When I traveled to Hong Kong in 1985, I was able to see the gulags set up for ethnic Chinese who were refugees from the then ethnic cleansing of Vietnam after the war. They were living in camps, not unlige concentration camps, complete with barbed wire, and without any chance of resettlement. When China finally took over, after the Honk Kong handover, those UK/Hong Kong gulags were closed.

[mikefina]

So, 24 years ago, when Hong Kong was still under British authority, you saw refugee camps from Vietnam? And then, they were closed.

Well, I guess that shuts the book on what is happening to minority religious groups and dissident political opposition in Chinese mainland TODAY.

Try again.

[Realization]

Pragmatism, right. That would be quietly eliminating the trade deficit in 3 to 4 years. Add Japan and Korea in while we are at it.

[FoonTheElder]

"Hillary Clinton set a precedent conservative ideologues are still bemoaning. Rather than confront Beijing with the usual litany of human rights complaints during her February 2009 trip to China..."

When did the Bush/Cheney administration or conservative idealogues ever do anything about human rights in China? All any of them have done is sell out America and its workers to a Communist Chinese totalitarian government so that their big corporate benefactors could stuff more money in their pockets.

China never has, and still does not deserve most favored nation economic status. They have always published documents that say one thing and do another. The difference today isn't that China has changed its policies much, but that the U.S. has gone so far in ignoring human rights that it has grown closer to China in that regard.

[PaPaPeng]

When the US make threats against China and any number of countries the US may confer the disfavor of the day on the rest of the world can see how empty those are threat are. There is nothing worse than a once powerful country known as the US have her bluff called repeatedly. It will do well for Sino-American relations that Americans of all stripes and colors realize that China is in a position where she can ignore American pontifications altogether. China will do whatever she needs to do to realize her national priorities. It is a measure of China's maturity and sophistication that she has been able to do so without raising tensions as in pointless cat fights with the White House. Raising competitive alarms among the rich industrialized countries that see China as a strategic rival, yes. The smarter one wins fair and square. The best way to regain your global influence is to direct your energies and your strategies on how to be competitive without resorting to military adventurism. Being politically correct on human rights, democracy, etc. distracts you from the important issues that is vital to your standing in the world community.

[CHRISSYLEE]

Speaking of "pointless cat fights " ....

When is the 'military adventurism" into Taiwan scheduled?

Since the US owes China so much it will stand aside and let Taipei fall?

[FairTalk]

We will continue to realease reports about how China is building up their military, and aiming missles at Taiwan, for the purpose of scaring folks in Taiwan and the US. Then we will sell huge number of arms to Taiwan, all made in Mississippi, of course, and which sales provide lots of jobs and fuel the US economy.

Taiwan, as I am sure you know, is Chinese, and I expect, at some future date, will revert to China, and at that time, China will have access to all the technology we sold to Taiwan.

[iameasilyannoyed]

When is human rights a cold war rhetoric? As someone whose first twenty years lived under an authoritarian regime where there was no freedom of press, assembly and speech, I categorically reject Mr. Anderson's views. US outspoken support for freedom around the world is important. Unfortunately that's something people who are born with freedom will never personally understand. Supporting human rights in China or Burma or elsewhere is not rhetorical or ideological, it is about basic kindness one human being has for the other. Based on Anderson's logic, I am terrified to think what would have happened if Germany were the largest holder of the US credits in the 30s?

[Shrinath]

Those were my thoughts exactly. People who have no clue about what a totalitarian regime is, keep spouting views as if they are experts in the field. Liberty and freedom be damned. Not only is the logic ridiculous I find the lack of understanding even more worrisome. China has aided and abetted the Burmese military junta which has kept the democratically elected leader Ang Saan Sui Kyi under arrest. China has had a hand in propping up North Korea vociferously after the fall of the erstwhile U.S.S.R. Experts in this region bemoan the fact that Burma does not have any fossil fuel else the Western world would have comes to its rescue long ago. If not for the American enterprises that invested heavily in cheap manufacturing outfits in China, the country would still be in shambles. The greenback has effectively aided the CCP capitalist elites to have a firm control on its population.

[PaPaPeng]

What did I tell you before? While you are hung up about matters that won't put food on your table or gas into your tank but sure as hell will piss off a lot of people China will move on ahead at full speed and leave you smelling her exhaust. The formula is simple. Pay the going rate for what you need and mind your own business. The road to hell is filled with good intentions.

[au6553]

Translation: Don't do anything to upset our creditors. Realize that our economy lives and dies at their pleasure. Once you have learned to accept your station, that's when you're being pragmatic. I've got an idea on how to improve our balance sheet. How about we end social security and medicare for baby boomers? Your worthless generation sold us to China, and now you can suffer the consequences while the rest of us try to pick up the pieces. You sold our economy to China, and now you want us to sell our soul. No thanks.