Fri, Mar 10, 2000 page12

• No excuse for China's white paper

  • By Scott Thompson
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  "It was worse than a crime -- it was a mistake."

  That most penetrating diplomatic insight was delivered by the Comte de Talleyrand, who survived five reigns and three revolutions as French foreign minister, upon hearing that Napoleon had ordered the murder of the powerful Duc d'Enghien. It brings to mind Beijing's recent white paper, which, apart from its lack of subtlety, bullying tone and threat of war, was, a mistake.

  Of course the US press has been full of the "double-cross" that a senior US team felt on completing a week's intense discussions in Beijing, with no note of the white paper bombshell that was to explode upon their departure. No doubt the white paper had been in the works for a long time -- well before the US House of Representatives voted so bipartisanly and overwhelmingly to enhance arms sales to Taiwan. But that vote certainly enhanced Beijing's willingness to slap US negotiators in the face.

  Yet we have before us what looks like a petulant child striking out in every direction when it doesn't and can't get what it wants, but is no longer entitled to. In behaving irrationally it sets in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more it threatens, the more US public opinion shifts in favor of Taiwan, as seen in the vote of and by the body closest to public opinion -- congressmen, who, after all, aren't philanthropists. They vote to get votes.

  The sad thing is that China doesn't "get it." This is not something to be smug about. I remember with great pain 30 years ago how the US didn't "get it" about Vietnam -- that fighting a nationalist, albeit also communist, revolution could only lead to disaster. There is a problem when great countries don't "get" something: and that is that they're big enough for lots of other people and countries to humor them, appease them and assure them that they are on the right course -- for their own usually self-serving reasons -- even when everybody knows they are on a disastrous course.

  That is what has happened here. European counties know that Taiwan has become a successful state and that identity has shifted dramatically. But they humor Beijing for trade advantages, and because, anyway, they see it as a marginal issue for them. And Beijing rants and raves so wildly on the matter that it seems best just to let the beast bray.

  But the beast's braying has become more dangerous. When countries become more powerful, they suddenly remember old grievances that had lay dormant, sometimes for centuries. They take an interest in the lands at the end of their reach and calculate what new interests they could develop there. As one scholar recently put it in China, "there is a new tendency to see that what is good for China is good for the world." It reminds us of President Dwight Eisenhower's defense secretary, who as president of General Motors had famously proclaimed that what was good for General Motors was good for the US.

  When systems get that big, they do start assuming that kind of "harmony." But an imposed "harmony" is no harmony at all, and the chill which the Chinese white paper put on Sino-US relations is palpable. But the degree to which the Clinton administration -- and its friends in Beijing -- have been put on notice that the US public will support Taiwan is even more palpable.

  The interesting point is that Beijing is aware of how big a mistake it made, because it rushed to assure the US that it had merely reiterated established policy. But the timing of the paper, the offensive and belligerent tone, in fact made it new policy. Now they have to calculate the price of their mistake.

  My guess is that a number of European chanceries will follow the US lead -- and start to take China's threats against Taiwanmore seriously. Whether Taiwan gets Aegis, TMD or new destroyers is not the immediate point. Taiwan will get an enhanced defense package and Beijing will know where the "blame" lies. It may be that the new weaponry is not even the biggest price that Beijing must pay for its blind pursuit of a policy that had long outlived its usefulness: it is that this was the turning point whereupon other influential states saw through China's policy.

  After all, in the "new sovereignty" that we are hearing so much about, the use of force is really only allowed to prevent genocide, to reverse aggression, to stop crimes against humanity. Just about the last thing that the principles of the "new sovereignty" would allow would be aggression against an autonomous democratic state that is bringing great economic benefit to its highly supportive populace.

  Scott Thompson is professor of international politics and head of the Southeast Asia program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
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