Historic and Strategic Contexts
of China Debate
By Joseph Gerson
 
Many opponents of extending permanent NTR to China are unaware of the
historical and cultural contexts. The Opium Wars of the mid 19th century
(1839-42 and 1856-60) were fought by Britain (with U.S. support) for
the unlimited right to sell opium to Chinese and thereby to offset serious
balance of payments problems for the British purchase of tea and silk.
Since then, successive Chinese governments have sought to restore Chinese
unity and China's role as a leading world power which, ironically, they
deliberately relinquished in the 15th century when they decided to turn
inward instead of outward. The opium and tea trade profited a number
of "old Yankee trading families" and helped to finance the
industrial revolution in the northeastern United States. It also marked
the beginning of the collapse of the Manchurian Qing dynasty and of
the domination of the Middle Kingdom by European powers, Japan, and
the United States.
The defeat, control, and subsequent containment, of China have also
been marked by racism, from John Quincy Adams' arguments that the Opium
war was "a battle between progress and Asian barbarity" to
the scapegoating of Wen Ho Lee and other Chinese-American and Chinese
scientists. The Chinese have a very strong sense of their place in history,
and ending the era of national humiliation has been the nation's task
for more than a century.
President Clinton's argument that membership in the WTO and the extension
of permanent NTR will change and Americanize China in "revolutionary"
ways communicates a disturbing imperial arrogance to many in China.
Cultures and political cultures change over extended periods of time.
Even though it is officially only "the Palace Museum," the
continuing centrality of Beijing's impressive "Forbidden City"
in China's political culture communicates national expectations about
the power and authority of the centralized state. This is terra incognita
for most in the United States. So are the Taiping Rebellion (1845-64,)
which resulted in large measure from U.S. missionary activity, and the
Boxer Rebellion (1899-1900) which sought to oust foreign influence.
These civil wars, like the "Anti-Japanese War" and the famine
that accompanied Mao's "Great Leap Forward"--claimed tens
of millions Chinese lives and continue to shape current thinking.
Containment and Engagement
Within this historical framework, the political battle being fought
to deny permanent NTR to China can be understood as part of the context
of the larger U.S. campaign to "contain" and transform China.
The Clinton Administration has vacillated between China policies of
"containment" and "containment with engagement."
The constant has been "containment." But, for many Chinese,
even "engagement" is seen as condescending or threatening,
since it seeks to make Chinese more like "us."
The Clinton Administration and Congress have identified China as the
United States' new enemy and the new "evil empire." This includes
the Administration's East Asia Strategy, its military doctrine, the
"redefined" and expanded military alliance with Japan, new
agreements and renewed military "training exercises" with
the Philippine military, charges of Chinese (but not Taiwanese) money
financing U.S. election campaigns, and the prosecution of Wen Ho Lee.
From a Chinese perspective, this Post Cold War "containment"
campaign is reminiscent of the imperialism of the Opium trade, the Japanese
and western competition for a slice of the Chinese "melon,"
U.S. support for the dictator Chiang Kai-Shek, and repeated U.S. nuclear
threats against China--most recently in 1996.
At the heart of the U.S. military campaign to "contain" China
is the effort to extract a "grand bargain" from China by threatening
and moving to deploy "Theater Missile Defenses" (TMD) in Japan,
at sea, and possibly in Taiwan. TMD could theoretically "neutralize"
all of China's missile forces, functionally restoring the power relations
that prevailed after the Opium War. In fact, the Chinese air force and
navy are less advanced than Taiwan's. Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of
Defense Joe Nye is clear that if Chinese military "modernization"
continues at its current rate, in twenty years it will have the capabilities
of a mid-level U.S. NATO ally of forty years ago.
Even without TMD deployments, the U.S. exercises overwhelming power
in relation to China, as was the case when Washington prepared or threatened
to initiate nuclear war against China in 1950, 1953, 1958, 1969, 1973
and 1996. While the right-wing in Congress and their allies raise the
specter of the China threat, it is the U.S. which has approximately
7,500 strategic nuclear warheads ready to be instantly targeted against
China. China, which built its nuclear arsenal largely to counter U.S.
and Russian threats, may have as many as twenty ICBM's capable of reaching
the U.S. mainland. The "conventional" imbalance is even greater.
Taiwan
The "Taiwan question" is one of the few conflicts in the
Asia-Pacific region which could lead to a regional war with global consequences.
Withholding permanent NTR for China will not solve, but will increase
tensions across the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese, including President-Elect
Chen Shui-bian and President Lee Teng-hui have called for extension
of Most Favored Nation status for China previously, and they now call
for the extension of permanent Normal Trade Relations to China.
The difficulties of peaceful resolution of the Taiwan crisis are compounded
by the fundamentally different ways the West and China view Taiwan.
Many in Taiwan and the West believe that during the past 100 years,
and especially with its economic modernization and introduction of electoral
democracy, the Taiwanese people have evolved into a separate nation
with the same rights to self-determination as any other nation. The
dominant Chinese perspective is that for one hundred years Taiwan has
been forcefully and illegally separated from the mainland, first by
Japanese colonialism and later by the U.S. 7th Fleet. Restoration of
Taiwan to China, even under the "one country two systems"
formula developed for Hong Kong, is understood to be essential to ending
the era of humiliation and to restoring China's rightful place in the
world.
Chinese military threats against Taiwan have been clumsy and in many
ways self-defeating. They have served the purpose of warning Taiwanese
politicians and voters and the United States that China is prepared
to take desperate action should the Taiwanese government take irrevocable
steps toward assuring or proclaiming its national independence. China
does not have the military means to invade Taiwan, but with its short
range missiles it has the capacity to wreak considerable damage. Given
the substantial benefit Chinese development derives from the very large
Taiwanese investment in China, along with the lucrative Taiwanese tourist
trade, a major Chinese attack against Taiwan would be self-destructive
and threatens to make an "unthinkable" nuclear confrontation
with the United States inevitable. A better approach is to focus on
diplomatic dialog and to permit time, the increasing economic integration
of China and Taiwan, and the increasing bonds of people across the Strait
to resolve the crisis.
(Joseph Gerson <jgerson@afsc.org>
is an Asia expert with AFSC. He is the author of the FPIF policy brief,
"Asia/Pacific Peace and Security Issues," which is posted
at: http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol2/v2n10asi.html)
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