Loves Me, Loves Me Not by Fareed Zakaria

March 22, 1999, U.S. Edition

Loves Me, Loves Me Not
One day we're friends with Beijing, the next day we're enemies. This is no way for a superpower to run a foreign policy.
By Fareed Zakaria

Did anyone really think that the Chinese were not spying on us? Most countries gather intelligence on each other, and most major powers direct their largest efforts against the SRS -- the Sole Remaining Superpower. The scandal is not that the Chinese tried but that they succeeded. As worrisome as this embarrassing security lapse is, it also highlights the central weakness of Bill Clinton's China policy -- the absence of an overall strategy.

Washington's relations with Beijing are beginning to resemble a roller-coaster ride -- complete with aftereffects of confusion and nausea. Only last spring, on his first state visit to the United States, President Jiang Zemin was feted by President Clinton, the Republican Congress and Harvard University, among others. On his own trip to China last June Clinton hailed the "strategic partnership" between the two countries. Last week the ride turned rough. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted that China's theft of nuclear know-how from Los Alamos was "a very serious issue." No mention of the strategic partnership. U.S. policy toward China has become utterly reactive, hostage to the latest news cycle. Every fresh crisis causes us to go back to basics and question again our approach to the Asian giant.

What's the solution? A two-pronged approach. Our China policy should stick to two central premises -- engagement and deterrence. The Clinton administration has been good on the first and hapless on the second.

Engagement is based on the common-sense recognition that China is a great power on the rise: we have to deal with a country that large and important. It also recognizes that trade, commerce and capitalism have produced immense benefits for hundreds of millions of Chinese. Not only are they richer, they are more free. Economic liberalization has spurred small steps toward a fair legal system and even local elections. Naturally, these political openings are limited and the Communist Party is trying hard to maintain its monopoly on power -- but they are real nonetheless. Washington should always condemn Beijing for human-rights violations and champion the cause of freedom there. But imposing sanctions on Chinese exports only weakens the most vigorous motor for progressive change in the country.

But deterrence is equally important. China must recognize that it can't muscle its way to great-power-dom. In the last few years the Clinton administration has waffled on this issue. It failed to do enough to stop China from systematically selling nuclear technology to Pakistan -- which helped lead to the Indian and then Pakistani atomic blasts last May. On his China trip last year the president seemed to weaken America's longstanding tacit support for Taiwan. Perhaps reading Clinton's remarks correctly, China has tripled the number of ballistic missiles on its southern flank aimed at Taiwan. This move is an unacceptable shift in the regional balance of power -- and the Clinton administration should forcefully speak out and take military measures to counter it. If Beijing continues to build the "correlation of forces" against Taiwan, Washington should bolster its commitments to the island democracy.

American policy toward China must also fit into a regional context. Deterrence works only if our Asian friends back it -- otherwise it looks like American hegemony. And yet for much of last year, senior American officials lavished praise on China while condemning Japan. It is worth bearing in mind that Japan is our staunchest regional ally, houses and pays for U.S. military bases, contributed most of the money to the attempted rescue of Asia's troubled economies and still has a GDP around seven times that of China.

Engagement and deterrence aren't contradictory. In fact, they are expressions of the same vision. The United States must seek to integrate China into the industrialized world. But it must also ensure that China's passage to power is marked by peace and liberalization, not aggression and conquest. A roller-coaster ride is fun in an amusement park, but in international politics it can get messy.