RETHINK RELATIONS WITH CHINA
By William Saffire
The New York Times/The International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, January 5, 1999
A couple of Shanghai prostitutes let themselves into a hotel room occupied by a man who had discussed human rights in a local teahouse. With a quick couple of zips, the girls stood naked. Moments later, police entered the room and arrested the dissident for patronizing prostitutes. This old entrapment-andblackmail dodge run by the frightened men ruling China is their crude way of trying to discredit the tiny group that wants to start a labor union and perhaps a non-Communist political party.Why this transparent subterfuge? Because the nationwide crackdown on dissidence, begun as President Bill Clinton visited China and hailed President Jiang Zemin as his partner, is not playing well in the world press and may not be going down well inside China. The logical reason for the iron fist is instability in the Forbidden City at the prospect of economic hard times. A generation anesthetized by rising prosperity is growing restive at slower growth. In the vast countryside, we have reports that farmers are grumbling,
unable to market bumper crops; in the jammed cities, an army of the underemployed posits a threat of unrest. The Communist leadership knows that the Soviet breakup began with Solidarity in Poland, and the stress on the state-stagnated Soviet system from Ronald Reagan's arms race. The ensuing dissatisfaction of workers and fanners was ignited by a cadre of underestimated dissidents. Fear of that scenario explains the desperate need of Mr. Jiang to squelch every peep of opposition. Americans are beginning to discover how brazenly the sclerotic Chinese regime has stolen U.S. missile technology, and how it played on the naïveté and financial need of American politicians to influence U.S. trade policies. Last week the bipartisan Cox committee revealed the tip of the iceberg of espionage penetration. Stimulated by a Jeff Gerth article in The New York Times, it began investigating China's illegal acquisition of all sorts of national security secrets. If the White House allows enough of the 700-page report to be dec
lassified, it will show that the worst hemorrhage of secrets took place in recent years. That is mainly because Mr. Clinton flip-flopped on trade with China. Restrictions came off. America now pumps $60 billion a year into the regime. Worse, Mr. Clinton steered the regulation of technology transfer to the complaisant Commerce Department. Which brings us to Lieutenant Liu Chaoying, a Chinese intelligence agent, daughter of a top general, who channeled money through Asian-American fronts to the Clinton-Gore and other campaigns. Where stands the prosecution of the "China connection"? Becalmed. Bill Clinton must be happy to have this case in the hands of his Democratic appointee, Paul Friedman. This judge has further crippled the lame Justice investigation by throwing out most of the counts against Maria Hsia, Charlie Trie and Pauline Kanchanalak. Under his curious reading of election law, Saddam Hussein and the KGB would be free to contribute millions to the Democratic National Committee so long as it is "soft
money." Here is the box score: one serious investigation of Chinese penetration suppressed because it is secret, the other stymied because of incompetence and misjudgment. In the light of (1) China's desperate duplicity on human rights , (2) the 38 secret recommendations by the House to stem the flow of secrets to China and then to Iran and North Korea, and (3) the botched and scotched investigation into the change of trade policy amid heavy contributions - isn't it time to rethink the "partnership"? Forget "Who lost China?" Consider "Who Shanghaied America?"
