The National Interest
Summer 2001

Communist Crowd Control

by George Walden

 

. . . The Tiananmen Papers should help our China policy mature. The game of counterposing fearless democrats ready to "stand up to China" to sinocentric softies in the State Department or to the Foreign Office mandarins was fun in its time, but it has had its day. In Tiananmen, the crisis of a system, all that was unavailing. Nor is "standing up for democracy in China" a moral policy of itself, since true morality cannot be divorced from practicality. Indeed, it can be immoral if the grandstanders are more concerned with their own bella figura than with the fate of the Chinese people, or the results on the ground of the policy in question. I have no problem with a tough stance toward Beijing provided the fruits are clear, but China is a standing temptation for vainglorious politicians.

How far was the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, a notoriously self-regarding fellow, concerned with securing practical and lasting benefits for the Hong Kong people, and how far with re-launching his career after his rejection by the British electorate? And is President Bush responding to an increased threat, or playing macho politics? The competition he speaks of is implicit in the West's relations with China. How clever is it to force it to the surface, thereby inflaming nationalist sentiment among the Chinese people-a boon for Beijing's hardliners-not to speak of the risk of driving the Russians and the Chinese back together, and European and American policy apart?

Moralistic gesturing did nothing to help the students in Tiananmen Square and will help no one in the future. A truly ethical policy is incompatible with populist stances that dismiss anyone who knows anything about the country as kowtowing lackeys by definition. It means finding workable ways to advance Chinese democracy, alongside our legitimate interests, and staying the uphill, winding course. For all that they record a tragic setback, The Tiananmen Papers, a book whose very appearance gives hope, should encourage us to persist. God knows we are going to have enough trouble dealing with a more wealthy and powerful yet still aggrieved and resentful China without antagonizing it further, to no apparent purpose. . .