The China Problem
Article Summary and Author Biography
Reviews the US debate between those favouring constructive engagement and those calling for China's censure and isolation on account of human rights abuses. US policy-makers should seek to extend economic ties while also speaking frankly on human rights issues -- it is impolitic to make the former conditional on the latter.
Michel Oksenberg is Professor of Political Science and Research Associate of the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.
Sino-American relations are in disarray. China's current leaders complain of continued American sanctions, the Bush administration's refusal to engage in high-level official exchanges and the deterioration in the quality of consultations on matters of common strategic interest. They protest President Bush's April 1991 meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader. They believe the United States has sought to restrain other leading industrialized nations in the Group of Seven from restoring relations with China to the levels that existed prior to the events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Washington is also accused of discouraging a rapid and full restoration of lending to China by international financial institutions. And behind these charges are more deep-seated fears-of another era of American global hegemonism and an American design to undermine China's communist regime.
Meanwhile, at least among key opinion molders in Congress and the U.S. media, China's leaders are scorned and disdained. Memories of the June 4, 1989, massacre in Beijing remain vivid in the American mind. China's leaders have expressed no remorse for their decision to send heavily armed military forces into the capital. No amnesty has been given to activists in that spring's demonstrations, and many dissidents languish in prisons without charges filed against them. In the two years since Tiananmen Square leaders in Beijing have pursued a hard line toward intellectuals. They have sought to impose ideological uniformity on the Chinese people. As in the Mao era the urban populace engages in weekly political study sessions; censors monitor and ban artistic works; leading universities are under intense pressure; Voice of America radio is jammed. The propaganda apparatus organizes campaigns to recall and emulate heroes of the Cultural Revolution era. But all these efforts have generated little cooperation and much disenchantment.
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