Thu, Sep 14, 2000 page8

• Do not be seduced by the Chinese

  • By John R. Bolton
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  On Feb. 21 an 11,000-word Chinese white paper reiterated Beijing's view that it had the right to use military force in order to unify Taiwan with China. Indeed, the white paper announced that Beijing would consider military force permissible if Taiwan "unjustifiably" delayed talks on unification, a major escalation of its threat level.

  Although the US rejected this Chinese assertion, and although many believed that it backfired on Beijing in the Taiwan election, the white paper unquestionably represented a major escalation of international pressure by China against Taiwan. Accordingly, many have worried that China would not adhere to the terms of the initial agreement under which both China and Taiwan applications to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT, the predecessor of the WTO) would be treated effectively in tandem.

  When criticisms of the white paper were immediately raised in the US, China reacted angrily to any suggestion that its threats against Taiwan should be considered during Congressional deliberations over Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status for China. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhu Bangzao (朱邦造) said: "Taiwan is purely an internal Chinese matter. Taiwan is an indivisible part of Chinese territory. We view the white paper and the issue of normal trade relations as two entirely separate issues," and that China "firmly opposes any attempt to link these issues." There things seemed to rest.

  Just recently, however, Beijing has explicitly introduced the explosive political issue of Taiwan's political status into the WTO's consideration of the pending membership applications for China and Taiwan. Although apparently not directly challenging Taiwan's application, China is attempting to condition Taiwan's WTO entry on acceptance of the long-standing Chinese position that Taiwan is part of "China." If China's insistence on this seemingly innocuous bit of nomenclature were to prevail, it would mark a significant victory in its campaign to assert sovereignty over Taiwan. Moreover, such a politicization of the WTO could gravely damage this already-shaky new organization, both in the US and in the world as a whole.

  The WTO is intended to be purely a trade organization, divorced from political questions that should be handled bilaterally or in other international organizations. Trade issues themselves are often intractable, and introducing political or other non-trade issues might bring the entire WTO process to a halt. Thus, neither the WTO nor its predecessor, GATT, requires members to be "states" in international terms, but only "customs territories" that have effective control over customs policies within their geographical territories. Under this approach, Hong Kong, for example, is a WTO member, even though it is indisputably part of China. This is an entirely salutary approach (and was long followed in the GATT context), one that it is in the long-term interests of the US, and one that we should work hard to preserve. It clearly differentiates questions of WTO membership from membership in the UN, or the UN's specialized and technical agencies, which almost invariably limit membership to "states" as understood under "customary international law."

  Taiwan is also currently on track for WTO admission as a "customs territory," thus avoiding, for WTO purposes, the flammable issue of Taiwan's international political status. When the accession process for Taiwan and China began in late 1992, all agreed that the underlying political disputes would be put aside, consistent with GATT's limited focus on trade. Once all of the requisite negotiations were completed, China was to enter GATT (and, subsequently, the WTO) slightly ahead of Taiwan, which would in turn become a member under the name "Chinese Taipei." At that point, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan would all be full WTO members as "customs territories," with the still-unresolved political issues to be fought out elsewhere.

  China's new interjection of the disruptive political status issue into the WTO admissions process was obviously carefully calculated in Beijing. Washington's first reaction was that China might be endangering its quest for PNTR, which the Senate is still considering. To avoid unrest in Congress, the Clinton Administration correctly stated that it opposed China's effort. Significantly, however, Deputy US Trade Representative Rita Hayes also said publicly that the 1992 arrangement was still in place, and that "China is going to live up to its commitments," something that China itself has not yet acknowledged. To the contrary, China's Assistant Trade Minister, Long Yongtu (龍永圖), responded ominously: "the `one China' policy is a matter of principle for us."

  In fact, China is trying to advance its political agenda in a non-political forum, rather than directly trying to keep Taiwan out of the WTO (although that might well be the practical consequence). Because the trade negotiators, business interests and lawyers who inhabit the WTO world are relatively isolated from larger international political issues, the stakes will not appear to them as high as they really are. Mere questions of "name cards" seem insignificant compared to "important" questions like Chinese agricultural export subsidies.

  This is a familiar tactic in international organizations. The undisputed master is the PLO, which for years attempted to enhance its international status by campaigning for membership in such bodies as the World Health Organization (WHO), which requires that members must be "states" in international parlance. By so doing, the PLO hoped to enhance its international status (or at least the perception of that status, which may be nearly the same thing), and thereby create "facts on the ground" in its negotiations with Israel, thus bolstering its bargaining position.

  The lesson of the PLO experience is that maintaining the non-political nature of specialized and technical international agencies is highly worthwhile, and even more beneficial to prevent them from becoming venues of political conflict in the first place. Even successfully opposing efforts to use such agencies for political purposes can impose significant costs by diverting the organizations from their underlying missions, and by setting adverse precedents not easily overcome later. Moreover, the PLO example demonstrates how seemingly arcane issues can assume enormous significance if not handled properly when they arise. Although apparent trivialities should not impinge on truly important policy issues, sadly, in international diplomacy almost nothing is too trivial. Finally, had it not been for the leadership of the US in opposing their bid, the PLO almost surely would have succeeded in gaining UN membership, with untold adverse consequences for the Middle East peace process and the UN system itself.

  China will doubtless offer "compromises" on its initial demand, and insist that Taiwan's subsequent unwillingness to give way is the real source of the "problem."

  Trade officials, like their health ministry counterparts faced with PLO intransigence, will predictably hail Chinese "concessions," and pressure Taiwan to accept what would otherwise be flatly unacceptable. This is China's real strategy, and Deputy US Trade Representative Hayes' enthusiastic embrace of the Chinese view shows that Beijing has carefully measured its marks in the Clinton Administration.

  But the fundamental point is that, as with the PLO, it is China's approach that is illegitimate, not Taiwan's. It is China that is breaching the non-political nature of the WTO by inserting this entirely political question, and Taiwan that is, in effect, defending the WTO's integrity by resisting.

  The people being intransigent and uncooperative here are from Beijing, not Taipei. If the US and others succumb to China's ploy, not only will Beijing likely succeed against Taipei, but it will also have severely damaged the WTO's ability to withstand pressures to consider other extraneous, non-trade issues, such as labor standards and the environment, to name just two.

  Here is where Congress must declare unequivocally that China's maneuver is unacceptable, and that there is no possible compromise on this point. This is a real trade issue, not one of human rights or weapons proliferation, and one that therefore is directly related to PNTR status. Congress should insist, before granting PNTR, that China drop all political objectives in the WTO, and specifically that it should not attempt to derail Taiwan's accession, or attempt to extract political leverage from the process. It should also insist, in the Clinton Administration's waning days, that the President himself ensures that US diplomats are not seduced by Chinese "reasonableness," and not allow the 1992 accession agreement to be subverted.

  John R. Bolton is the Senior Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute. This article is an abridged version of testimony that he gave before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sept. 6, 2000.
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