By Cal Thomas - December 1, 1996

PRESIDENT CLINTON and his outgoing secretary of state, Warren Christopher, have sent an important message to the next generation of Chinese dictators:

You can kill your own people, who want nothing more than their basic human rights. You can break treaties and agreements. You can sell weapons, including nuclear technology, to our adversaries, such as Iran, and it will cost you nothing. We'll even throw in most favored nation status just to prove we mean you no harm.

America's military power has always been sustained by our moral power. The world knows that we stand for certain principles, and while we might sometimes make short-term compromises, with the exception of Vietnam, we rarely lose sight of our ultimate objectives.

Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin made little, if any, progress toward fulfilling the United States' fundamental objectives. But because Clinton is the master of imagery over substance, it was announced that their talks in Manila "went very well".

Based on what? Well, the Chinese promised to honor international copyright agreements on "intellectual property", meaning no more copying of books or CDs. But they made that promise before and broke it. They also agreed to stop nuclear testing. If they do, does anyone think they won resume testing if it suits their interests?

So the two presidents will visit each other's capitals. And China gets the political equivalent of absolution for its brutal treatment of pro-democracy citizens, its persecution of Christians, its forced abortions, its weapons sales and its inhumane orphanages, where up to three-quarters of the children die.

Selective amnesia

Clinton apparently has contracted selective amnesia, forgetting what he said in 1991 about our China policy under President Bush. Candidate Clinton criticized Bush for doing some of the things Clinton is doing now. He said Bush was coddling China after the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square.

But Clinton's policies toward China which he called "constructive engagement" - have emboldened the Chinese to a point where they even threatened to launch a nuclear attack on Los Angeles if the United States were to defend Taiwan from a mainland invasion.

Clinton first linked better trade relations with China to progress on human rights, but then he uncoupled the connection and granted Beijing most favored nation status. The Chinese have responded by running up a trade deficit in their favor.

Clinton has also encouraged technological exports to the Chinese to aid in modernizing their military plants, but consider this criticism by candidate Clinton in a speech at Georgetown University five years ago: ``President Bush too often has hesitated when democratic forces all across the world needed our support in challenging the status quo. I believe the president erred when he secretly rushed envoys to resume cordial relations with China barely a month after the massacre in Tiananmen Square. The administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology . . . and its abusive trade practices.

Candidate Clinton opposed extending most favored nation status to China unless it made progress on human rights.

But in 1993, Clinton flip-flopped, saying, "I think anybody should be reluctant to isolate a country as big as China with the potential China has for good". This was Bush's position, which provoked candidate Clinton's opposition.

The Daily Oklahoman editorialized last year after the president's delinking of trade and human rights: ``After vowing to punish Chinese human rights violations, the administration backed off, causing a growing Asian perception of U.S. weakness and a tougher Chinese posture.

Constructive engagement

Clinton's "constructive" engagement policy of encouraging technology exports to China has helped the Chinese modernize their military plants but has not produced the desired better behavior by the Chinese leadership. Do we care so little about those who died and their cause which used to be ours freedom?

As the Wall Street Journal noted earlier this year, ``The crusty old men in the Chinese Politburo must have been amazed at how easy it was to push Bill Clinton around, so they decided to keep pushing.

Something else the Chinese learned: Clinton never means what he says and never says what he means. But we could have told them that.