U.S.-China relations to the test

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

Sec. of State PowellÕs whirlwind Northeast Asia tour to line up support for WashingtonÕs Iraq UN tactics and to build a strategy for handling North Korea is only a poor beginning of a long road.

Powell had his work cut out for him: In Tokyo, the fickle Prime Minister Koizumi was in line on Iraq. But he dodged U.S. insistence Pyongyang should be taken on in multilateral negotiations rather in a one-on-one North Korea-U.S. encounter that Pyongyang, Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo say they prefer. In Seoul, Powell faced a new, amateurish, disorganized government [no foreign policy team yet], ideologically disposed to see North Korea in the best possible light. [Washington is still reeling from a visit of a Roh adviser who said Seoul would prefer a nuclear-armed North Korea to a collapse of their blood brothers with its call on the South Korea economy and an avalanche of refugees.]

Beijing publicly urged Powell to accept PyongyangÕs call for direct talks. On Iraq, the official Chinese line was to continue ÒinspectionsÓ. But China-hands point out Beijing was keeping its head down ø as it has throughout the Iraq crisis. China has not associated its position however similar, with France and Germany despite its sponsorship of the anti-U.S. Shanghai Six only a few months ago. It has not followed RussiaÕs President PutinÕs flirtation with Paris and Berlin. [That, despite reported Washington assurances to consider MoscowÕs Baghdad debts, its interests in Iraqi oil, and world oil price ÒstabilityÓ in post-strike Iraq production.]

While the spotlight has been on the UN, WashingtonÕs feud with France and Germany, and the trials and tribulations of the U.S.Õ embattled ally, Prime Minister Blair, there has been a swell of optimism about the long-term aspects of U.S.-China relations among the China watchers. As always with the mysterious processes by which the Chinese Communist Party directs the affairs of a quarter of the worldÕs population, the speculation depends on bits and pieces.

Foremost is anticipation of the scheduled installation of a new Chinese government at the National PeopleÕs Congress in March. In theory, this will be the enthronement of the Fourth Generation, with Party Secretary Hu Jintao already in place. [That President Jiang Zemin has held on to the all powerful Central Military Commission ø one of three hats he would relinquish were he to retireø has lent some skepticism to the process.] Optimistic China watchers argue Fourth Generation leaders are a new kind of Chinese leadership. They are, it is argued, products of ChinaÕs growing modernization, educated not only in new technologies but also in systems modeled after Western statecraft. And many personally experienced the bitter Cultural Revolution decade, that last gasp of Maoist nihilism that almost destroyed the regime.

Part and parcel of their new way of thinking, it is argued, is that they take realistic foreign policy attitudes. They know the critical nature of the U.S. relationship -- well aware the huge trade whose surplus surpassed $100 billion last yearø is the motor of the economic boom in the coastal provinces. They understand how critical foreign investment has been to ChinaÕs economic progress in the past decade. And they understand its basic weaknesses ø questionable statistical evidence, a bankrupt banking system, hemorrhaging still unreconstructed Soviet-style state companies, growing unemployment, agricultural deflation in the vast backward hinterland, environmental catastrophes, a skyrocketing bill for imported energy, etc., etc.

All of this, it is argued, is leading to a new more cautious Chinese approach to foreign policy ø and the U.S.. A Taiwan newspaper leaks a story that Beijing is withdrawing missiles it has been installing opposite the Island on the Mainland coast. A Hong Kong newspaper, known for its past exposures of Beijing policy, confirms conservativism is the order of the day in foreign policy.

But in the past predicting Beijing policy has not been a low-risk pursuit. And despite growing Chinese and foreign relations, there is no more transparency in BeijingÕs decision-making processes.

Given the high priority that Washington will have to assign to the North Korean problem ø not only its direct threat but its record of selling weapons to pariah states and the possibility that it would sell well-heeled freelance terrorists ø Chinese leadershipÕs hunkering down can not be enough for U.S. policymakers. ChinaÕs role as the chief prop for the North Korea regime ø its only ally, aid in energy and food which keeps the regime alive ø becomes increasingly the only lever to reign in an unpredictable, weak but heavily armed and dangerous regime.

ThatÕs a test Washington will have to apply to the new Chinese leadership in the not too distant future. Only the preoccupation with Iraq and the effort to reach a working relationship with the new South Korean leadership now postpones that confrontation.