July 4, 1997
ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL
Laughing in Beijing
ow delightful it must be these days to be a member of the Chinese Communist Politburo! Every time they get together they must laugh and laugh and laugh.
Every day they hear the highest American officials, members of Congress, the press, intellectuals, the lot of them, mesmerize themselves speculating on whether China will remodel Hong Kong or Hong Kong will remodel China.
The men of the Politburo know all these heavy-duty thinkers still have not grasped the new historic reality that Beijing has brought about: China is remodeling America.
Beijing has changed the thinking and behavior of America's President, political parties, top business executives, journalistic and academic seers, even of the guardians of its security.
Most delicious to the Communists, China has reshaped and diminished the value America places on itself -- its democratic and religious values, even its military security values.
Let's dispense with the question of whether the Communist rulers will dominate China's future or kindly allow one of its cities, the least trusted, to take over.
Why on earth should they? China and other dictatorships have shown throughout modern history that they can expand economically without expanding liberty -- as long as the democracies are so submissively ready to transfer their capital and technology to them.
About Hong Kong's own liberties -- China made its intentions clear before its flag went up. Beijing wiped out the elected legislature, bullied the local press into self-censorship and announced that 4,000 troops would be arriving, for starters. Foreign and Hong Kong investors danced and feasted. America mewed.
The chatter that investors will want China to be more "liberal" about human freedoms, and that this will bring some kind of contest between them, comes from a mixture of guilt at deserting dissenters and the muddy-minded assumption that investors in China care about anything except profits.
So back to reality -- the remodeling of America. (Our allies needed no reshaping to put money �ber alles.)
Beijing could not remodel America by itself. It got American cooperation.
China did what America would not. It made human rights a tough part of its policy -- but the Communist way. Knowing its rule increasingly depended on total control, Beijing deepened repression. Then it added real international pressure: if Western companies said a critical word, or failed to urge appeasement on their governments, they would lose trade and contracts.
In America, the China trade lobby was Beijing's instrument of pressure, persuading Mr. Clinton to kill human rights as a part of U.S. policy. From that, all else flowed.
As an appeaser of China, the U.S. could not expect its allies to oppose repression elsewhere. America's sanctions against small dictatorships like Cuba and Burma became a mockery.
American politicians reshaped their thinking about foreign interference. Official and business life in China revolves around favoritism, bribes, payoffs. So it was natural for China to infiltrate American politics with money -- and for remodeled American politicians to accept.
The new U.S. Government and business thinking instructs us that a $50 billion trade deficit is good for workers; be happy.
Remodeling also helps business sacrifice jobs in the future. China demanded and got from American businesses the technology and equipment to produce their products itself. After all, we couldn't make deals with them if we only looked out for American workers, right?
The new Clinton line was that if the U.S. was more understanding about Beijing, China would be less disruptive internationally.
The New York Times headline, July 3: "China Is Top Supplier to Nations Seeking Powerful, Banned Arms." The authority is the Central Intelligence Agency, the nations include Iran, Syria and Pakistan, the "supplies" are technology and materials, and the weapons are ballistic, nuclear and chemical.
The Administration knew about these deals but courteously accepted Chinese statements that it knew nothing about them and would not do it again.
America's new-think is dangerous to its ideals and security. But at least it is good for laughs in Beijing.
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Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
