International Herald Tribune

Dec. 2, 1996

by Jonathan Mirsky

Manila - It was a macabre moment when Jiang Zemin presented Bill Clinton here with what Beijing spokesmen described as an example of Chinese goodwill: a video and photograph album of a crashed World War II B-24 bomber, complete with remains, discovered in Guanxi Province in southern China.

In earlier days, Chinese leaders, keen to impress important foreigners, gave them pandas. Now wreckage and skeletons are in vogue. President Clinton did not ask President Jiang how long the B-24 had been known about.

He did not ask, either, about the dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan. The phrase "butchers of Beijing" used in his acceptance speech four years ago, would now be considered destructive engagement.

"Constructive engagement" has emerged from the advice the White House gets from China experts in Washington's think tanks that National Security Adviser Anthony Lake calls upon for support. These academicians and ex-officials say that China is not like other countries -- because of "face", its officials must never be confronted, and certainly not in public. What works is subtlety, discretion and indirection.

That China uses and armory of brutal terms and tactics -- calling Hong Kong's Governor Chris Patten a "whore", or firing missiles close to Taiwan to influence its election last March -- is not mentioned.

The White House points, off the record, to a recent success of the new subtlety. When Wang Dan was imprisoned for 11 years (he had already served almost four after the ruthless suppression of the pro-democracy movement in 1989), the American response was muted. Washington indicated disappointment and regret, but not so much that the upcoming visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Warren Christopher might be overshadowed.

What pleased the White House was the subtle message passed back after the measured reaction to Wang Dan's imprisonment. Beijing, it was hinted, was reconsidering its program of selling weapons to Iran, regularly described by the U.S. government as a rogue nation. That hint may explain the insistence in Manila by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Goufang that China never has, does not and never will spread weapons or technology of mass destruction to anyone.

World War II aircraft wreckage. Bilateral hints. Vice President Al Gore to Beijing early 1997. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Jiang to exchange visits sometime in the next two years.

Strive as they might, the briefers after the 85-minute meeting between the two presidents could find little common ground other than a recognition that the U.S.-China relationship is important for the world, and that for internal political purposes each leader would profit from visiting the other.

Mr. Jiang, with a crucial Communist Party congress coming up next year where he must be acclaimed Deng Xiaoping's successor, had little to give. He must appear before his colleagues as nationalistic, though, and also as unyielding with foreigners who nonetheless invite him to their capitals.

China has been told repeatedly by acting U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky that it has a long way to go to enter the World Trade Organization. But in the present atmosphere in China -- in which Mr. Deng's reforms, his family and his allies are all under attack -- Mr. Jiang probably takes the Chinese long view in the end foreigners come around.

There was plenty of evidence for this when Mr. Christopher was in Beijing ahead of Mr. Clinton's meeting with Mr. Jiang in Manila. Speaking at Fudan University, he praised China's legal and administrative reforms.

He had already ensured that John Shattuck, his assistant secretary for human rights, who two years ago had met Wei Jingsheng, this time remained silent. In any event, there were no dissidents at large.

Mr. Christopher, unlike his Chinese interlocutors, had a big thing to give away -- the idea that human rights are an international concept to which nations adhere in UN conventions. Beijing dismisses this a violation of sovereignty, instead defining human rights as shelter and enough to eat.

Mr. Christopher agreed. He told the Fudan students that "each nation with its own history and its own set of requirements, must find its own way on this subject." This is bad news in China's gulag in Tibet.

The writer is East Asia editor of The Times in London.