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[Page: S283]
There is a reluctance to be forceful with China on the issue of human rights.
When I say `forceful,' I do not mean the use of force, but the willingness to stand forthright for what this country should stand for.
We turn a cold shoulder to our friends in Taiwan, where they have a multiparty system, and seem to quake every time China is unhappy with something someone says or does.
As the editorial suggests, we should `respond far more sharply to Wei Jingsheng's sentence.'
I am pleased to back this administration when they are right, as in Bosnia, but I also believe that we should be much stronger in setting forth our beliefs as far as the abuses in China. I ask that the editorial from the New York Times be printed in the Record after my remarks.
Along the same line, Stefan Halper, host of NETE television's `Worldwise' and a former White House and State Department official, recently had an op-ed piece in the Washington Times titled `Taiwan's Unheralded Political Evolution,' which I ask to be printed in the Record following my remarks and after the New York Times editorial.
The reality is democracy has grown and is thriving in Taiwan, and we should recognize that in our policies.
The material follows:
If the United States intends to develop a relationship of mutual respect with China, it must defend its interests as vigorously as Beijing does. Now is the time, for China has shown a dangerous new bellicosity in matters from human rights to military threats.
Last week Beijing again showed its contempt for the rights of Chinese citizens by convicting Wei Jingsheng of sedition and sentencing him to 14 years in prison. The activities the court cited included organizing art exhibitions to benefit democracy and writing articles that advocated Tibet's independence. This heavy-handed muzzling of the country's leading dissenter is a measure of the Chinese belief that America and other Western countries will not make them pay a diplomatic or economic price for the abuse of human rights.
Chinese behavior has been equally provocative in other fields. In recent months Beijing has bullied the Philippines over contested islands in the South China Sea, twice conducted missile tests in the waters off Taiwan, resumed irresponsible weapons transfers and imposed its own choice as the reincarnated Panchen Lama, the second most important religious figure in Tibet. Meanwhile, as The Times's Patrick Tyler reports, influential military commanders have begun pushing for military action against Taiwan and turned to confrontational rhetoric against the United States.
Washington has minimized these provocations, setting them in the larger perspective of China's encouraging economic reforms and Washington's hopes for political liberalization. That was the same logic that led the Administration, early last year, to abandon its efforts to link trade privileges for China to Beijing's record on human rights, arguing that anything that helped China's booming economy would ultimately advance political freedom as well.
It is working out that way. The 19 months since that policy change have been marked by a serious deterioration in China's responsiveness on human rights and other issues. Discouragingly, this seems to be happening not simply because a new generation of leaders is maneuvering to succeed the failing Deng Xiaoping. Nationalist military officers are steadily gaining political influence, and the two top civilian leaders, President Jiang Zimen and Prime Minister Li Peng, seem committed advocates of political repression. That suggests the newly belligerent policies may not be just a transitional phase, or a sign or insecurity in the leadership group, as some China scholars in the West have said.
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