New York Times - May 26, 1997

FOREIGN AFFAIRS / By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Last week President Clinton outlined his plans to renew China's most-favored-nation trading privileges. He made the announcement to a group of business leaders at the White House. Here's what the President should have said to them, but didn't.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've asked you here today to be the backdrop for my renewal of China's trade benefits, because I knew you'd be a friendly audience, since many of you do business with China. So let me begin first with a message to all of you:

Wake up, you morons! You are so greedy and shortsighted. You profit enormously from your business dealings with China. But you refuse to acknowledge that those dealings take place in an overall framework of U.S.-China relations, and that framework is now eroding. Yet, you won't lift a finger to help shore it up. You ostriches make me sick!

Look around you. A year ago key Republicans and Democrats were forging a new bipartisan consensus on China, healing the rift created by Tiananmen. Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, Warren Christopher, Sam Nunn, Bill Bradley and I were all giving the same speech about China all advocating a nuanced policy of engagement with Beijing that would build bridges where possible, draw red lines where necessary.

Today that consensus has fractured into so many pieces I've lost control of my China policy.

My ability to get my way on the biggest issues involving China is now seriously in question.

What happened? Heck, what didn't happen? Our trade deficit with China ballooned to $40 billion, which drove many labor activists to conclude that China's not the Big Red Menace it's the Big Wage Menace. They fear that millions of Chinese working for 50 cents an hour are going to take millions of U.S. jobs. (They're actually taking jobs from other low-wage countries like Thailand, not us.) Then the Christian right decided to go on the warpath against China, because of its birth control policies and its crackdown on unregistered evangelical churches. Then you had Congress in a tizzy over China's alleged campaign payoffs and arms sales. The net result is a crumbling foundation for our relations with Beijing.

On top of it all, the old wise men who could validate a policy of engagement with China are ignored by this parochial Congress. Newt may listen to Henry Kissinger, but his troops don't. They don't even listen to Newt. They might listen to you, though. So here's what you're going to do:

(1) You're going to stop with your pious hogwash that everything in China will turn out fine if Congress will just leave you alone to make money there. Yes, commerce with China is a necessary condition for promoting reform there, but it's not sufficient. To be both effective and true to our values, we need to have an active policy of promoting more freedom there as well. So you're going to lobby your Congressmen and tell them that you understand their concerns about China's behavior, but that everyone just beating their breasts about China won't change anything. Things will only improve if business, human rights and labor activists work together, with China, to insure that as it grows economically, it becomes a more open, pluralistic and law-based society. And the best way to do that is by promoting rule of law in China.

(2) I want the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce to set up a $50 million fund, matched by Congress, that will bring Chinese law students, judges, lawyers, even prosecutors, to the U.S. to complete their legal education and to gain exposure to our legal system, and to support legal education programs in China. The Chinese leaders don't oppose these programs because they know they can't grow their economy without a more rule-of-law-based system. They are just betting that they can institute rule of law in every area except politics. Fine, I'll take that bet.

I know this focus on rule of law won't change the mood in America toward China overnight. Some groups here need a big enemy like China, and Lord knows, China makes it easy for them. But for those who really are interested in making a difference there not just moral preening this rule of law approach could be the basis for building a new consensus. It's good for human rights, it's good for business, and it's good for China. Without a new consensus, this relationship is going to go right over a cliff, and it's going to take your business and my foreign policy along with it.