May 2001

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Bush's Asia Brinksmanship

Joseph Gerson is Director of Programs of AFSC in New England. Related articles and a bibliography can be found at: www.afsc.org/pes.htm

When will they ever learn?

--"Where have all the Flowers Gone?" (Pete Seeger, from an Ukranian folk song)

Revelations that as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam thirty years ago, former Senator Bob Kerrey led an attack that killed at least thirteen unarmed civilians--women, children, older men--could not have come at a more opportune time. It is a small but sobering reminder of the tragic costs of US arrogance in Asia, which is once again in high gear.

The Bush team has gone out of its way to stoke tensions with China and North Korea, to derail the Korean peace process, to transform a relatively minor military incident into a major confrontation, and to accelerate US military commitments to Taiwan. One needn't believe that China is a cuddly benign power to conclude that Bush and crew are going out of their way to make China our new enemy. In their first 100 days, they have been consistently confrontational and bellicose in their approach to Asia. The complexities of Clinton era engagement/containment of China have been shattered and replaced with simple-minded military and economic containment and a passion for brinksmanship.

China is not the Soviet Union. It is the world's oldest continuing civilization and state, and though its economy is growing, it remains a poor country. As with Vietnam, China's distance and historical and cultural differences make it less comprehensible to our parochial sensibilities. Its per capita income (pci) is $700, and recently its propagandists worked to bolster the government's standing by celebrating news that Shanghai, having reached $4000 pci, became the first Chinese city (not counting Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau) to join the world's "medium-developed cities." (Other "medium" cities include Nairobi, Vladivostock, and Beirut.) China's military modernization, ballyhooed by the Pentagon, includes arms purchases from Russia and deployment of short range missiles along its coast, and is designed make Beijing competitive with Taipei, not to challenge Tokyo or Washington on whom it depends for investments, markets, and technology.

Even before Bush and his Cold Warriors moved to Washington, they advocated confrontation, not militarily reinforced engagement, with China. Clinton, they argued, betrayed the national interest by wooing China as a "strategic partner" rather than challenging it as our "strategic competitor." They questioned the long-term policy of "strategic ambiguity" toward Taiwan, designed to prevent Beijing from using force against the estranged province, while simultaneously discouraging Taiwanese nationalists from taking dangerous steps toward formal independence. Bush reiterated his support for early deployment of "National Missile Defenses" that are useless against Russia, unnecessary for "Rogue States," and actually aimed at China. The "Armitage Report" called for US military power to be focused away from Europe, toward China and the Asia-Pacific.

It is sobering to note that three weeks before the spy plane incident, China's Foreign Minister felt it necessary to warn Washington that its confrontational approach involved "serious dangers," and that "It should rein in its wild horse from the edge of the precipice." Asia-related elements of a dynamic that Anthony Lewis described as having "the feeling of a coup" included:

• Colin Powell's first meeting with China's Ambassador focusing on US support for the Falum Gong sect and charges that China was violating sanctions on military sales to Iraq
• The ill-fated commitment to seek UN Commission on Human Rights condemnation of China (apparently oblivious to the two million people warehoused and rotting in US prisons)
• Public humiliation of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in Bush's first summit with an Asian leader, derailing Kim's "Sunshine Policy" diplomacy and the Clinton Administration's near-completed missile agreement with North Korea
• Repeated commitments to deploy "Missile Defenses," rationalized as necessary defense against North Korea, but seen by China as a shield to reinforce the US first strike nuclear sword
• Announcement that the Pentagon's new Marshall Plan sees the Pacific as "the most likely theater of major US military operations, as China becomes more powerful," requiring greater emphasis on "long-range power projection" to ensure US dominance.
• Hints of official support for selling Taiwan Missile Defense related Aegis destroyers.

Then came "Hainan Noon." Bush and company transformed what should have been a minor incident into a major confrontation by asserting that "We have nothing to apologize for," demanding the immediate return of the offending EP-3E crew and "sovereign" spy plane before they could be interrogated and inspected (which the US itself has done in similar incidents), and giving scant recognition to nationalist and political pressures limiting Jiang Zemin's freedom of action.

The spy plane incident was not entirely unexpected. Tensions had mounted for nearly a year, with Washington ignoring Chinese warnings that flights were coming "too close to the coast and...might cause trouble." With little room for face-saving maneuver, Beijing's leaders made the most of China's vulnerabilities and possession of the plane and its crew. US arrogance was highlighted by global recognition that the US does not tolerate similar intrusions of "international" air space along its coasts, the death of the Chinese pilot, and comparison of the incident to the 1998 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Washington's military and economic threats frightened its very silent Asian allies and increased China's regional standing. Thus, despite the asymmetry of power, the Bush Administration moved ineluctably to the words "very, very sorry."

With the crew safely returned, and anxious to recoup its political standing with its extremist right-wing base, the Bush Administration immediately returned to form, denying any responsibility for the incident and committing to quickly renew US aerial reconnaissance of China--possibly reinforced by the dispatch of US aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. $4 billion in new arms sales, long thought to be too provocative, were pledged to Taiwan, along with the promise to reconsider Taiwan's request for Aegis destroyers, Patriot missiles, and other advanced weapons "as needed." Taiwan's independence-minded former President Lee Teng-hui was granted a visa to visit the US, and Bush ended the decades-old policy of calculated ambiguity by announcing that the US must "do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."

China's initial response was both diplomatic and unambiguous. The US, it warned, "has drifted further on a dangerous road." Different lessons have been taken from the first turns in the spiraling confrontation. The Washington Post called for the early renewal of the spy flights. Tom Friedman, the Establishment's man at the New York Times, wrote there were three lessons: "(1) When dealing with China carry a big stick and a big dictionary. (2) This is an inherently unstable relationship. (3) Get used to it." And Clinton's Asia specialist Kurt Campbell, anticipating future confrontations "very close to China's national territory," urged that we learn "how to manage and control the ways in which we remain at odds." Taiwanese businessmen and investors were unimpressed, fearing the new belligerency would undermine ties that have been growing after a century of division enforced by the Japanese military and the US 7th Fleet. Despite US arms sales and security pledges, polls again tell us that the vast majority of Taiwanese want to resume long-stalled negotiations with China.

China is poor, and its military is archaic; but it is dangerous to underestimate the consequences of a serious military confrontation. The nation is still healing from 150 years of foreign occupation, colonization, and humiliation. This, and the importance of maintaining "face," not US-style pragmatism, are essential to its political culture, and it is through these political lenses that Japanese and US dominance of Taiwan are understood.

What will Beijing's leaders risk to remain in power and to preserve self-respect? One senior Chinese military officer put it this way: If Taiwan takes significant steps toward formal independence, Chinese leaders will have no choice but to respond militarily; political forces in the US may force Washington to respond militarily; then "we will face the unthinkable."

Much of the world wonders why US military forces are "routinely" active along the Chinese coast and elsewhere in Asia. They wonder why, in the post-colonial era, the US insists on being an Asian power. They wonder why Washington is making China its enemy, and why it derailed peacemaking in Korea. It's time to begin wondering, learning, and acting with them.

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