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| IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES? November 6, 1997 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
Will China become more powerful than the U.S.? Did the Chinese make policy demands? Which country achieved more of its original objectives? Did the summit change China's view of human rights? Has the U.S. turned a blind eye to China's human rights record?
NewsHour Coverage
October 29, 1997:
A discussion on the meeting of Presidents Jiang and Clinton.
October 28, 1997:
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright previews the China summit.
October 27, 1997:
The upcoming summit with China has focused attention on its president, Jiang Zemin.
October 8, 1997:
China is constructing the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, but what will be the social and environmental costs?
July 29, 1997:
The Senate considers allegations that the Chinese government tried to influence the '96 elections through illegal campaign contributions.
June 24, 1997:
The House votes to maintain China's Most Favored Nation trading status, ignoring calls to impose sanctions for human rights violations.
May 19, 1997:
President Clinton says he wants to renew China's Most Favored Nation trading status for another year.
April 16, 1997:
Does China's leadership have a grand strategy to dominate Asia in the coming years and view the U.S. as a long term enemy?
March 27, 1997:
Sandy Berger discusses VP Al Gore's trip to China, and possible attempts by China to influence the 1996 elections.
Browse the NewsHour's Asia Index OUTSIDE LINKS:
The People's Republic of China Embassy
Michel Oksenberg's Web site at the Asia/Pacific Research Center.
Jiang Zemin's itinerary told what impressions he wanted to make. Whether laying a wreath for fallen American soldiers or modeling a three-corner hat in colonial Williamsburg, every step of the Chinese president's trip suggested a desire to pay tribute to American history, recall the former allegiances between China and the U.S., and perhaps even suggest that the two countries have more similarities than differences. But that impression withered away on Wednesday when Presidents Clinton and Jiang bluntly exchanged opposing views on human rights, showing that in reality, the world's most developed and fastest developing nations are world's apart on many fundamental issues.
And this combination of friendly gestures and ideological clashes left it unclear whether the U.S.-China summit was a success or failure.
The most obvious gains from the summit were economic: China agreed to buy 50 Boeing jetliners for $3 billion and opened the door for the U.S. to sell civilian nuclear power plants, estimated to be worth another $60 billion.
This was not only an economic win but also environmental one as well; currently China's 1.2 billion people depend heavily on coal for energy, the leading cause of global warming.
China also provided written assurances that it would halt nuclear cooperation with Iran, something the U.S.had hoped to achieve from the outset of the summit.
And the summit offered intangible gains was well. President Jiang has come out of the week-long summit with the new stature of a world leader, both in the U.S. and in his own homeland. And the week's events suggested that the two countries are on a path towards increasing dialogue.
But Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan have remained road blocks. Wednesday's press conference showed an astonishingly blunt clash of ideologies between the two presidents. Clinton stated that the 1989 massacre of political dissidents in Tiananmen Square placed China on "the wrong side of history."
Clinton's statements however, seemed to fall on defiantly deaf ears. President Jiang defiantly defended the Chinese government's brutal stance against political protest and religious differences. He dismissed American protesters that have plagued his trip as mere "noise." And in an interview with the NewsHour, Jiang said that dialogue was possible without "interference in each other's internal affairs."
Is it? The summit was friendly and economically productive. But with fundamental issues unresolved, was this week's summit truly a dialogue or were the two countries talking past each other?
Was the summit a success? How significant were the trade-related agreements? Was the United States too lenient on China for its human rights record? Has the summit strengthened Sino-U.S. relations, and opened the door for changes in Chinese policies towards political and religious freedom? Is it possible to separate economic and moral issues in foreign relations?
Our guest for this forum is Michel Oksenberg, Senior Fellow at the Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford University and regular guest on the NewsHour.
Will China become more powerful than the U.S.?
Did the Chinese make policy demands? Which country achieved more of its original objectives? Did the summit change China's view of human rights? Has the U.S. turned a blind eye to China's human rights record?
Dr. Richard T. Demers of Simi Valley, CA asks:
Will its huge volume of human and natural resources enable China to become more politically and militarily powerful than the U.S. in the next century?
For example, will China's increased power cause Japan to realign or shift its allegiance?
Michel Oksenberg responds:
I doubt it. China's large population is as much a burden as an asset, in terms of the sheer number of people that China must feed, clothe, house, educate, and employ. For example, China must feed four times the population of the United States on 60 percent of our cultivated acreage. It has 21 percent of the world's population but only six percent of its arable land. Moreover, on a per capita basis, China is still a developing country, and even under the most optimistic projections of its growth, 50 years from now, its average per capita income will still be far below America's current per capita income levels.
Even in the natural resource realm, it faces critical deficiencies in petroleum (China is an oil importer), high quality iron ore, and phosphate (an important ingredient in chemical fertilizer). And its rapid growth had created major environmental problems.
Your question is correct in pointing out that China's economy is growing, its political influence is expanding, and its military is becoming more powerful. But it is unlikely to surpass the United States in any of these categories in the decades ahead, especially in terms of its global political reach and its military might.
China will be able to affect the military balance on its periphery as it acquires precision guided missiles, but it will long remain vulnerable to a devastating attack from the United States. Today, the United States spends nearly $250 billion on defense, while China spends -- according to the best estimates -- about $50 billion. That difference will narrow in the years ahead, but the United States will continue to outspend China on defense for decades into the future.
And China's increased might is more likely to lead to increases in Japan's own defense expenditures rather than its seeking an accommodation with China.
Back to the top....
Jerry Casagrande of Peoria, Arizona asks:
As Secretary Albright explained (in a NewsHour broadcast last week), the U.S. was asking China to take action on a number of issues--nuclear proliferation, human rights, climate change, terrorism, drugs, and Korea.
What were the Chinese asking from the U.S.? Did they have demands or requests from us that would require us to change our foreign policy, economic policy, or even domestic policy (for example, I believe in their own reports, the Chinese have cited the violence and homelessness in the U.S. as being violations of human rights.)
Michel Oksenberg responds:
Yes, the Chinese have many desires that United States is unprepared to fulfill. They wish the United States to sharply reduce arms sales to Taiwan, to restrain increases in Japanese defense expenditures, to remove the remaining sanctions that were put in place as a result of the June 4, 1989 suppression of the demonstrators, to allow China entry into the World Trade Organization on relatively easy terms as a developing country, to eliminate all restrictions on technology transfer to China, to place pressure on Taiwan to alter its stance toward China on many key issues, and to increase bilateral and multilateral assistance particularly in order to facilitate Chinese efforts to address its increasingly severe environmental problems.
Back to the top....
The Online NewsHour asks:
Which country achieved more of its original objectives? And in terms of less tangible gains, did one leader make a better impression to the press, their own people, or international onlookers?
Michel Oksenberg responds:
Both sides can be satisfied with the results of the visit. The United States had a longer list of concrete objectives, and while it fell short on many of them, progress was made in each of the areas of importance to the United States. While the Chinese placed their primary emphasis upon the atmospherics, and here too the Chinese scored many successes, they also fell short of achieving total success.
Back to the top....
The Online NewsHour asks:
Did this summit make any impact on China's view of human rights? If it didn't make any impression on its president, has it made any impression on the Chinese population, or was coverage of the summit censored by the China's government?
Michel Oksenberg responds:
The results of summit diplomacy become evident only slowly. It is too early to judge the impact on President Jiang or the Chinese people. The coverage in China was subject to considerable censorship, but the news gets through via other channels: Voice of America, Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong that circulate widely on the mainland, faxes and e-mail, letters from the over 100,000 Chinese in the United States to their relative and friends at home, and classified but uncensored coverage -- often translatio ns of Western coverage in the New York Times or Washington Post -- in translation that circulate among top and mid-ranking officials. Both the leaders and ordinary Chinese are already familiar with the American position on human rights, and I doubt with this additional exposure had much effect.
Back to the top....
The Online NewsHour asks:
By signing trade deals while remaining at an impasse on human rights, has the U.S. essentially turned a blind eye and agreed to disagree with China?
Michel Oksenberg responds:
Certainly not. The Chinese are well aware of the importance that the United States attaches to human rights and realize our differences in this area constrain progress in other areas. Moreover, there are many ways to advance the cause of human rights in China, and the joint commitment to work together to improve the quality of the Chinese judiciary and to accelerate development of the rule of law is a most promising development.
Additional comments...
Tom Hinds of Cincinnati, OH writes:
... [Jiang Zemin] is a man from an ancient culture. He is trying to continue the work of Deng and it will take some time. We act like a lot of arrogant, disrespectful college students instead of hosts and people interested in the positive aspects of the visit. It is probably the contacts set up and the trading relations established more than our cultural crudities that in the long run will have the desired effect.
Kevin Cahill of Albuquerque, NM writes:
In his interview of President Jiang Zemin, Mr. Lehrer seemed fixated upon the issue of human rights and unable to discuss anything else. There are many other issues that are important in the relationship between China and the USA.
Also we should keep in mind that the USA is not a perfect country. For example, our routine use of capital punishment is condemned by most advanced countries and by many religions, including the Catholic Church. Also we have a larger percentage of our population incarcerated than do most advanced countries. And the way in which Native Americans and African Americans and some other groups have been treated and are being treated is far from a model of human rights. And because we stupidly have rejected the use of nuclear energy, we are the leading polluter of the air and warmer of the earth. So let's show some humility and let's give China a break!
John Di Marino of Beijing, China writes:
Whether the summit was a failure or success is not the question. Here in China everyone thinks it was wonderful that their President was in America. But you should know that the "show" is more important than anything in China. Put on a great show and you are a success. Everything here is a show for appearances. Jiang rehearsed everything before he went to the USA. Everything he said in the so-called impromptu debate on human rights with Clinton has been printed in the Chinese press for many months... word for word. It's the same words. So as a show it was great, but nothing much will change in China except a few dollars will change hands. Americans should not be so gullible about China's good intentions.
Lin Zucconi of Alameda CA writes:
... I fear the influence that American big business has on our government and President which has caused them to disregard Chinese flagrant violation of patents, copyright, human rights, weapons proliferation etc. agreements. I also fear in what form our sales of nuclear power technology and aviation technology etc. will come back to haunt us should the virtually inevitable war occur between the West and China as its seeks dominance over Asia or attempts to seize Taiwan or the Spratley's. Jiang was quite a showman but thank God that his hard core center became apparent to all during his press conference with Bill Clinton.
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