Speak Out for Li Shaomin
It was over ten years ago in 1989 when a valiant young man stood alone in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in an act of protest. The photograph of the incident has become an apt metaphor of the fundamental conflict in China: the intransigent independence of the individual resisting the crushing dominance of the state. Since that time, Chinese military power, influence, and economic strength have grown, but there has not been a commensurate improvement in political and personal freedom in China.
What made the protest at Tiananmen more poignant for Americans is that the Chinese protestors embraced American symbols as well as ideals in their protest. We have grown accustomed to American flags burned in anger usually by puppets of regimes or other groups run by thugs. The site of paper mache reproductions of the Statue of Liberty reminded Americans of the liberty they enjoy.
A short time after the protests at Tiananmen Square had been ruthlessly squashed, George Bush the elder sent high-level Administration officials to mend bridges with the Chinese government. Americans were rightly upset at this capitulation to Chinese tyranny.
Bush did not want Chinese repression to alter long-term trade and diplomatic relationships with the United States. Diplomacy can work in ways that are not readily apparent to those more concerned with principle than tact. If the private rapprochement had resulted in concessions by the Chinese government that loosened its grip over the private lives of the Chinese, we might be able to say that diplomacy succeeded. Success could justify private diplomacy.
However, rather than learning that internal repression has consequences, the Chinese government learned the virtue of patience. Let things settle down and in the long run the Americans will be so obsessed with the prospect of lucrative commerce that not only will there be no trade restrictions, but Americans will not even make serious vocal complaints. Indeed, if you are sufficiently persistent you might even be able to find an American politician for whom illegal campaign contributions can purchase acquiescence.
George W. Bush has in many ways learned from the mistakes of his father. Where his father was aloof, George W. is avuncular and gregarious. However, George W. has inherited much of his father's foreign policy apparatus. Although that foreign policy team was successful in its prosecution of the Gulf War, they never found a permanent formula for dealing with China. George W. and may be fated to repeat the same mistakes with respect to China.
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