A SENSE OF ASIA

Chinoiserie

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

My Jesuit friend, perhaps the most accurate Sinologist of our times, Father Ladany, and I had a private joke: we were writing a book, Chinoiserie through the Ages: From Ricci to ______. Ricci was the controversial Jesuit who in the 16th century began Rome’s long, unrequited infatuation with China. The blank we left for the most recent American VIP, who, overwhelmed by that most wonderful and unparalleled Chinese hospitality administered by the Communists, would issue statements damaging to U.S. national interest.

I couldn’t help recalling that this week with the arrival of Vice Premier Qian Qichen, the first toplevel Communist official to make contact with the new Administration. Qian, although an old secret policeman, is advertised among China-watchers as “liberal,”, “reformer.” He is lead tenor in a well-orchestrated Chinese charm offensive to dull the generally perceived more critical attitude of the new Dubya administration.

Qian had been widely publicized to deliver thunder and lightning against delivering advanced weaponry Taiwan needs against a Mainland threat, a decision scheduled for April. But advance billing was wrong; Qian will be the consummate diplomat, and the finest soy cake would not melt in his mouth.

For Beijing leadership is well aware that it is in no position to challenge US policy head-on.

Everywhere there are signs the regime is creaking at the joints. The sniff of a US economic downturn means its enormous trade surplus — the mainstay of China’s economy, predicted to reach $150 billion this year — will sag. The enormous economic hangover from Maoism, huge, bankrupt state enterprises, is still to be “reformed.” Their personnel, the most politically potent in the country, balked. And now minor rationalization is producing massive additional unemployment, strikes, bombings, and increased corruption. A skyrocketing deficit has to unnerve Communist bigwigs who remember the Nationalists’ defeat was as much by inflation as on the battlefield.

If that were not enough, the obscurantist Falun Gong with its hundreds of thousands of members [many inside the Communist Party] has stood up against the worst repression. Again, no educated Chinese can forget the powerful nihilistic Taiping and Boxer rebellions that tore China apart at the beginning of the modern age. And a succession contest may be coming, again, remembering that no power transfer in Communist China has been without surprises. Pres. Jiang Zemin and his sophisticated Shanghai clique is up against old standpatters who control Party machinery and rural areas hit hard by a failed agricultural policy.

Thus the charm offensive to seduce Bush II. After all, it was such a campaign that lured Poppa Bush’s administration into a relationship where the multinationals were freed from strategic trade controls to invest and make technological transfers. That sparked old Deng Hsiao-ping’s “any colored cat that catches mice” policy — but its military applications must now be a security concern for Washington.

The choir in Beijing has chimed in. Premier Zhou Rongji — backing away from earlier hardline utterances — says differences are problems of communication, that Washington is sending a complicated message, that it takes time to get to know one another. Sha Zukang, China’s arms czar, only had to hint that Beijing might modify its bitter opposition to Bush’s proposed missile defense, for CINCPAC US Pacific Commander Admiral Dennis Blair to reassure the Chinese that “there will be more elements of continuity, I think, than of change.” Blair and his predecessor, outgoing Ambassador Admiral Pheulmer , were among the most enthusiastic supporters of Clinton’s policy of “strategic engagement” — at Taiwan’s expense if necessary.

Zhou trumpeted Bush’s proposed October visit to Beijing, before the White House could announce he was going to US allies, Japan and Korea, enroute to the Asia-Pacific Summit in Shanghai. In the good old days, “barbarians” came to kowtow to the emperor of the Middle Kingdom, the center of the earth, bringing birds’ nests [for soup], taking home concubines as spies, leaving wives and children as hostages. A smiling, friendly, amenable US president would do wonders for propping up the regime’s local scenery against internal enemies in a Communist Party always fraught with conspiracy.

After all, the last time an American president visited China, Clinton let the Chinese leadership nudge him into a new Shanghai Communique accepting Beijing’s “three nos”, their formula [and strategy] for Taiwan, rewriting the tougher Nixon-Mao line. And given the growing list of domestic concerns, new, even minor concessions on Taiwan would be a fillip for a beleaguered leadership. Stalwart Republican conservatives like Kentucky’s Sen. McConnell have already seen the light and want a policy not that different from Clinton’s.

It would be well to remember a Chinese proverb: