Diplomatic hotshot Richard Holbrooke's call for a fourth US-China Communique, "one that would address ... new issues and update the relationship based on new realism," was not well received in Washington this week.
Not needed, said the US State Department's Richard Boucher. "The framework, the existing framework, we think allows us to pursue the goals we need to pursue with China and we will stick with that for the moment," Boucher declared. "We're looking for candid, constructive and cooperative relations with China, but we do continue to build on areas of cooperation and common interests, like the fight against terrorism, as well as addressing our differences with the Chinese," Boucher noted. "We frankly think the current framework of our relationship allows us to pursue these goals, and we will continue to use that framework as we move forward."
In his Washington Post op-ed piece on Tuesday, Holbrooke declared that the "Sino-American relationship will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world during the next cycle of history, much as the US-Soviet relationship dominated world affairs for most of the last half of the 20th century. Getting it right is vital for our national interests."
"The relationship with China," Holbrooke concludes, "despite many ties, is not inherently stable; too many things lie beneath the surface that could disrupt it."
A new communique might not be sufficient to prevent a future confrontation -- it could explode over events in Tibet or Taiwan in any case -- but it would go a long way toward building a stronger relationship with China and would perhaps help Taiwan open a more productive dialogue across the Strait.
"It's true that the old communiques don't quite fit the present but to try to negotiate a new one would be more destabilizing," stated Ralph Clough, senior China specialist at the School of Advanced International Studies.
The op-ed piece "shows Holbrooke just doesn't understand Asia that well," said Mark Pratt, former State Department official with extensive experience in Taiwan and China. In US negotiations with the Chinese, Pratt said, "we find we try to get something and we end up giving something. We do try to give something to the Chinese on the verbal side, believing that it makes no difference in policy. But for the Chinese, if the words change, then the policies must change as well.
Pratt gave the controversial 1982 Communique as an example. "It was totally unworkable," he said. "The words were written to please the Chinese but they could not be implemented." Pratt also criticized Holbrooke as "very one sided" because of his tendency to recommend what Taiwan should do to reassure Beijing and not be forthcoming about what China should do to assure Taiwan.
Finally Pratt noted that the suggestion couldn't have come at more difficult time for negotiations with China, as China moves through a leadership transition. "Sensible actions and statements will be all the harder to come by," Pratt believes, "at this time when, particularly on the Taiwan question, leaders will have to show they are purer than the pure." All the hardliners will roll in to vote and while it "looks like [Chinese President] Jiang Zemin (
The timing, Pratt said, "is as bad as having the Kaohsiung rally [in 1979] at the time when all the old KMT heavies were meeting in Yangmingshan. Let the leadership battle clear," Pratt suggests, "and then try to get something more stable in the relationship."
Jay Chen of the Central News Agency quotes Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Georgetown University history professor who has written extensively on US negotiations with China, as saying that Beijing "would find that the things the Chinese want most are the things we are least prepared to give," particularly on the Taiwan issue.
A story Jim Mann, author of About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton, tells about Holbrooke when he was Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the Carter Administration highlights Holbrooke's long-standing concern about the US relationship with China.
"Richard Holbrooke and [Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights] Pat Derian had a brawl over the human rights report for China," Mann quotes Stephen Cohen, an aide to Derian, as reporting. This was the first such report and came in 1980 after the destruction of the Democracy Wall movement by Chinese president Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平). "He [Holbrooke] tried to understate human rights issues, because we had a new relationship with China, and he didn't want to offend China."
While Holbrooke's recent op-ed piece warns that "the United States should not be lured into assisting undemocratic practices or anti-Tibetan actions inside China," the theme of a strong relationship with China remains the core of his vision.
The crisis provoked by the events of Sept. 11 might well provide new opportunities in the US relationship with China, but the old challenges still remain. Peace in East Asia and the security of Taiwan still stand as core issues. So far, no Washington voices have been raised in agreement with Holbrooke that a new US-China Communique would really meet these challenges.
Michael J. Fonte is senior policy analyst at the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.
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