Let Reality Replace Myth and Hatred

If America is going to put the worst possible spin on China’s motives at every turn, then why not just saddle up for war right now? When allegations surface that China may have slipped a few million bucks into U.S. campaign coffers, some seem to assume that somehow this alleged act transformed the U.S. government into a Manchurian-candidate puppet overnight, with commies in Beijing yanking the strings. And when U.S. authorities apprehend one lone Chinese merchant ship carrying illegal guns that set sail from a nation of 1.2 billion people and many ports, why not assume that the operation originated with China’s President Jiang Zemin himself? After all, China is nothing more than a totalitarian monolith, right?

Hold it right there, urges Rand, the esteemed think tank in Santa Monica. In one of the most important reports it has ever issued, “Chinese Military Commerce and U.S. National Security,” Rand’s Center for Asia-Pacific Policy takes the voodoo out of contemporary Sinology and shows why the China of our nightmares is far more frightening than that of reality.

Referring to the almost exclusively American fear that China’s activities on both sides of the Pacific constitute serious threats to America, this timely work of analysis and fact-collection deflates a whole roster of overblown headline issues. It looks at the operations of Chinese businesses in America and finds them mainly nonthreatening, as they are mostly working independently, often competing fiercely against one another. It assesses the shipment of illegal armaments by companies in China and agrees that this needs to be watched carefully--but puts it in this context: China is less an awesome military or security threat than a disorganized and decentralized (if fast-developing) Asian nation coping frantically with enormous domestic problems. By emphasizing the largely fragmented and frequently noncooperating structure of China’s military and civilian establishments, the report, by James Mulvenon, suggests that the picture of an anti-American conspiracy directed by an all-scheming Beijing master class is a fanciful Hollywood hallucination indeed.

The report warns against the tendency to lump the many law-abiding Chinese companies into the same category as those few that do violate U.S. laws, as if all Chinese companies (and by extension all Chinese Americans who do business with China) were guilty until proven innocent. This mistake, it warns, “will only exacerbate the atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion in the overall relationship.” As for the much-vaunted private sector business operations of the People’s Liberation Army, most of them, says the report, lose money, even though they’re intended to supplement military wages in the face of past budget cuts. What about those suspicious Chinese arms exports to Third World countries? Again, the report counsels us not to assume that Beijing has strong central controls over all its arms exports. And it therefore approvingly singles out former Secretary of State Warren Christopher for handling the controversy over chemical weapons shipments to Iran by having U.S. sanctions slapped on the exporting Chinese companies involved, not the central government. Regarding dual-use technology sent to China--that is, the sale of software or hardware that conceivably could be used for warlike as well as peaceful purposes--this, the report agrees, must be watched like a hawk. But, again, hold your missile fire: “The United States’ bilateral strategic relationship with China,” reminds the report, “is arguably the most important in the post-Cold War world and should not be disrupted by what are ultimately second-order issues.” China is still so technologically underdeveloped that its ability to absorb and deploy sophisticated U.S. technology is extremely limited.

What this detailed report doesn’t go into is the heretofore limited focus and imagination of Chinese foreign policy. But in its most recent twists and turns, Beijing has offered less menace than opportunity. In volatile Korea, for instance, China has remained at worst neutral. This week, ground is to be broken on a huge U.S.-brokered energy project in North Korea that could never have gotten to first base without Beijing being on the same team. Noted Michael Nacht, a former U.S. arms control official, speaking last week at UCLA, “There appears to be a substantial tilt by Beijing toward South Korea. By contrast, China’s relations with North Korea are more limited and strained than in the past.” And until recently, China loosened its purse strings for virtually no one in Asia. Last week it extended $1 billion in emergency credit to baht-battered Thailand. It was a stunning move.

We must avoid demented demonizations of Beijing simply because it is still nominally communist, just as we must also not fall prey to unblinking approval because all we can see over there are potential dollar signs. We need a foreign policy driven by relevant facts and intelligent analysis, not by old myths and new hatreds.

Charles Wolf, dean of the Rand Graduate School, cautions: “We will have trouble with China. They see the world differently from us.” True enough--and it’s a wise caveat to keep in mind. Even so, I also fancy the way arms control specialist Nacht responds to America’s let’s-contain-China crowd. “Engagement,” he says bluntly, “is containment.”