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Potomac Crossings --By George Mason
Beijing Botches Bush Test The Bumpkins of Beijing have dropped the ball, picked it up again and are racing off in the wrong direction. The old guys in power have peasant thoughts and brutal impulses. The sole motivation of the current crop is to retain a monopoly on power, whatever the cost. Unlike the Internet Chinese on the coast and in Taiwan and Singapore, they lack sophistication and elegance in their undertakings. An accident in the air on April Fool’s Day created an unexpected but important test of the Sino-American relationship. So far, Beijing appears to be flunking. The Prologue In squashing the 1989 Tiananmen Square peaceful demonstrations, the ruling party began 11 years of make-believe and denial based on a consensus among the leadership that the people must be silenced, even if that meant the use of force. The regime initiated a four-part plan: (1) encourage economic development to quiet unrest and earn resources for the party and the Army, (2) promote fervent nationalism to divert youthful dissatisfaction with communism and the status quo, (3) make empty promises of reform to encourage foreign approval and thus investment, and (4) use cruel repression to suppress anyone who might still speak up, or, in the case of the Falun Gong, sit up or even breath deeply. Through a combination of diplomacy, media campaigns, threats and money, the Chinese government has sought to exploit differences within the new Bush administration (a threat or a market?) and between the two political parties (strategic partner or strategic competitor?) in order to prevent the deployment of any effective defenses against China’s growing arsenal of tactical and strategic missiles. In an orchestrated campaign, according to Michael Waller, China has tried to appeal to the Clinton sentiments of "strategic partnership" while at the same time literally threatening war. The public relations offensive included two delegations to Washington since February. The second, lead by Vice premier Qian Qichen, had four agenda items – mute criticism of China’s human rights abuses, defend Beijing’s support of Iraq, stall or squash U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and rouse opposition to the national missile defense system. The new Ambassador to the United States, Yang Jiechi, has been described as a personal friend of the elder President Bush. The PR campaign has three components. The promotion of constant favorable themes by Western journalists is an on-going campaign. Pressure was put on U.S. businesses to lobby the President and Congress and make pro-China public statements or face retaliation on their Chinese business interests. Finally, leading figures in and out of government were personally pressured to make public and private statements favorable to the Chinese position. The three key positions were: deny or limit the sale of defensive weapons to Taiwan, stop the sale of Aegis-equipped destroyers (which are also defensive systems) and undermine the missile defense program, especially the development of defenses against cyber-attacks on information systems. The Story On April 1, 2001 a turboprop EP-3E Aries reconnaissance aircraft stationed in Okinawa began a 12-hour sweep of the shipping lanes 50 or so miles off the coast of China. Interested in assessing the state of Chinese military modernization, the 24 members of the crew were monitoring everything but they probably had two special interests in mind. On March 24th, a Chinese warship had threatened an unarmed U.S. surveillance ship, the USS Bowditch, in nearby international waters. It was presumed that the Bowditch was chased away because it had wandered too near one of China’s new Russian-built Kilo-class submarines. The Kilo is equipped with anti-ship weapons and is designed to attack aircraft carriers. On this day, however, the Aries was monitoring the maneuvers of a Russian-made Sovremenny-class destroyer. This particular warship is considered to be the best in the Chinese navy because it carries SS-N-22 "Sunburn" anti-ship missiles. The Chinese do not have air superiority over Taiwan and destroying U.S. aircraft carriers would be necessary to achieve it. According to radar stations based in Taiwan, the EP-3E was flying slowly in circles at a low altitude in the vicinity of the Sovremenny. Two Chinese F-8s took off from an airbase in Guangdong Province and appeared to be attempting to drive away the American plane. In the Chinese airforce, the F-8 is an old airplane piloted by young pilots. On this day, the aptly-named pilot Wang Wei, was having difficulty flying as slowly as the EP-3E, according to the radar station. It is presumed that he was flying recklessly close by order and not free-lancing. (An alternative explanation is that the pilot had a history of "thumbing" observation planes and this was a thump that went wrong. "Thumping" occurs when a jet flies directly in front of the targeted plane to create a wake from the blast of the jet engine. This particular F-8 pilot had flown so close in the past that the pilots in the observer plane could read his E-mail address, according to military records.) Captain Wang was apparently flying out of sight, directly underneath the low-winged EP-3E, which would have to dip its wing for the pilot to see close at hand on either side. His jet rose, shearing off the larger plane’s nose cone and damaging the left wing and its two engines. The Taipei Times newspaper reports an intelligence source who had listened to the cockpit exchanges as saying that the wounded EP-3E tried to escape but was forced to land on Hainan Island by the second F-8 pilot who used threatening machine gun fire. In addition to being on of China’s top sex tourist resort vacation locations, the island hosts one of China's largest electronic-signals-intelligence complexes and satellite-communications-intercept facilities. The damaged U.S. plane lands on a cleared runway after a ":May Day" distress call. The Aftermath In what William Safire calls "a gift to geopolitical realists here and a blow to softie Sinologists and amoral business interests," the Chinese leadership then set about inflicting great diplomatic and public relations damage on itself. Its plan to win concessions from a crisis it precipitated by its year-long policy of buzzing our aircraft has been a dismal failure to date. Not only is Congress now ready to give Taiwan what it needs, the academic and business appeasers and Clinton leftover wet noodles in the Pentagon and State Departments are stunned into near silence. Strategic partnerism is as politically dead as Murphy’s goat. (All that remains is the US$100 billion in annual trade for both sides to consider.) At stake is more than the immediate issues on Beijing’s plate or the investments of businesses. Chinese threats and lies have produced daily fresh converts away from the Chinese side. As one Congressman said, "I’ll give you an apology. I am sorry I voted for PNTR." (Permanent Most Favored Nation Trading status has to be renewed by the first week of June. There is no WTO membership without it.) Secretary Rumsfield has been directed to re-evaluate the entire China policy. Such a review could attack the false premise that China is destined to rule Asia. It could, in fact, promote more serious consideration of an "ASEAN-Plus" coalition. In Robert Locke’s formulation, ASEAN-Plus could be developed into a Pacific reaction to the historically brutish intimidation policies of China. There is a formidable alliance available to the United States, he suggests. They are the nations of India, Japan, Russia, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, Thailand, Australia and Singapore. All have experienced China’s skill at making its neighbors dislike it. When they have strong allies, they are reasonably reliable anti-Chinese nations who represent significant resources. American has a significant asset with these nations. At the end of the day, they feel comfortable doing business with us because they know we are not out to subjugate them. However, without firm support for Taiwan from America, the linchpin falls out. If the United States were to abandon its old, democratic and successful friend to Chinese aggression, U.S. credibility in Asia would be gone. The stampede to Beijing begins when the other ASEAN nations conclude that they cannot count on America in their future. What stands in the way of ASEAN-Plus? The leftover Clinton policy of proactive globalism. Arrogant with the temporary status of being a sole super-power, U.S. foreign policy, under Secretary Albright, has attempted to base the nation’s security on trying to impose a universal hegemony rather than a policy of deterring potential adversaries from doing us harm. We have no business denying the legitimate national security aspirations of nations with no fundamental hostility towards us. The mistake may be becoming too strong for our own good, Locke concludes. The answer may lie in becoming a reliable partner rather than an unreliable lecturer. Time’s up. By the Sunday morning talk shows, the detainees will become hostages. P.S. Boston College and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement have released a study of 50,000 randomly-selected 8th grade students in science and math. The test of 38 countries showed that the United States placed 17th, just behind Bulgaria and Latvia. The top five in math were Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. In science, the rankings of the top five were Taiwan, Singapore, Hungary, Japan and South Korea. ### |
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