[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 47 (Monday, April 15, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3321-S3322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           CHINA'S FOUR SLAPS

  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I am concerned that we are waffling 
on the China issue when we should be very clear.
  Clarity in this case will lead to a diminished likelihood of military 
action and a diminished likelihood of a spurt to the arms race in Asia.
  The Charles Krauthammer column which appeared in the Washington Post 
recently, and which I ask to be printed in the Record after my remarks, 
is unfortunately accurate. It eloquently outlines what has been taking 
place. He also mentions the matter of ``quiet diplomacy.'' Whenever I 
talk to people in the State Department they assure me that ``quiet 
diplomacy'' is being used.
  My experience over the years is that ``quiet diplomacy'' frequently 
means no diplomacy or it means ``anemic diplomacy.''
  The column follows.

                       [From the Washington Post]

       China's Four Slaps--and the United States' Craven Response

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       The semi-communist rulers of China like to assign numbers 
     of things. They particularly like the number 4. There was the 
     Gang of Four. There were the Four Modernizations 
     (agriculture, industry, technology and national defense). and 
     now, I dare say, we have the Four Slaps: four dramatic 
     demonstrations of Chinese contempt for expressed American 
     interests and for the Clinton administration's ability to do 
     anything to defend them.
       (1) Proliferation. The Clinton administration makes clear 
     to China that it strongly objects to the export of nuclear 
     and other mass destruction military technology. What does 
     China do? Last month, reports the CIA, China secretly sent 
     5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan for nuclear bomb-making and 
     sent ready-made poison gas factories to Iran.
       (2) Human rights. Clinton comes into office chiding Bush 
     for ``coddling dictators.'' In March 1994, Secretary of State 
     Warren Christropher goes to China wagging his finger about 
     human rights. The Chinese respond by placing more than a 
     dozen dissidents under house arrest while Christopher is 
     there, then declare that human rights in China are none of 
     his business. Christopher slinks away.
       (3) Trade. The administration signs agreements with China 
     under which it pledges to halt its massive pirating of 
     American software and other intellectual property. China 
     doesn't just break the agreements, it flouts them. Two years 
     later the piracy thrives.
       (4) And now Taiwan. For a quarter-century, the United 
     States has insisted that the unification of Taiwan with China 
     must occur only peacefully. Yet for the last two weeks, China 
     has been conducting the most threatening military 
     demonstration against Taiwan in 40 years: firing M-9 surface-
     to-surface missiles within miles of the island, holding huge 
     live-fire war games with practice invasions, closing shipping 
     in the Taiwan Strait.
       Slap four is the logical outcome of the first three, each 
     of which was met with a supine American response, some 
     sputtering expression of concern backed by nothing. On 
     nuclear proliferation, for example, Clinton suspended 
     granting new loan guarantees for U.S. businesses in 
     China--itself a risible sanction--for all of one month!
       ``Our policy is one of engagement, not containment,'' says 
     Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and 
     Pacific affairs. This is neither. This is encouragement.
       Two issues are at stake here. The first is the fate of 
     Taiwan and its democracy. Taiwan is important not just 
     because it is our eighth-largest trading partner. With its 
     presidential elections tomorrow, Taiwan becomes the first 
     Chinese state in history to become a full-fledged democracy. 
     It thus constitutes the definitive rebuff to the claim of 
     Asian dictators from Beijing to Singapore that democracy is 
     alien to Confucian societies. Hence Beijing's furious 
     bullying response.
       The second issue has nothing to do with Taiwan. It is 
     freedom of the seas. As the world's major naval power, we 
     are, like 19th century Britain, its guarantor--and not from 
     altruism, Living on an island continent, America is a 
     maritime trading nation with allies and interests and 
     commerce across the seas. If the United States has any vital 
     interests at all--forget for the moment Taiwan or even 
     democracy--it is freedom of navigation.
       Chinese Premier Li Peng warns Washington not to make a show 
     of force--i.e., send our Navy--through the Taiwan Strait. 
     Secretary of Defense William Perry responds with a boast that 
     while the Chinese ``are a great military power, the premier--
     the strongest--military power in the Western Pacific is the 
     United States.''
       Fine words. But Perry has been keeping his Navy away from 
     the strait. This is to talk loudly and carry a twig. If we 
     have, in Perry's words, ``the best damned Navy in the 
     world,'' why are its movements being dictated by Li Peng? The 
     Taiwan Strait is not a Chinese lake. It is indisputably 
     international water and a vital shipping lane. Send the fleet 
     through it.
       And tell China that its continued flouting of the rules of 
     civil international conduct--everything from commercial 
     piracy to nuclear proliferation, culminating with its 
     intimidation of Taiwan--means the cancellation of most-
     favored-nation trading status with the United States.
       Yes, revoking MFN would hurt the United States somewhat. 
     But U.S.-China trade amounts to a mere two-thirds of one 
     percent of U.S. GDP. It amounts to fully 9 percent of

[[Page S3322]]

     Chinese GDP. Revocation would be a major blow to China.
       Yet astonishingly, with live Chinese fire lighting up the 
     Taiwan Strait, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said Tuesday 
     that the Clinton administration supports continued MFN for 
     China. He did aver that Congress, angered by recent events, 
     would probably not go along.
       This is timorousness compounded. Revoking MFN is the least 
     we should do in response to China's provocations. Pointing to 
     Congress is a classic Clinton cop-out. The issue is not 
     Congress's zeal. It is Beijing's thuggery.
       Quiet diplomacy is one thing. But this is craven diplomacy. 
     What does it take to get this administration to act? The 
     actual invasion of Taiwan? You wait for war, you invite 
     war.

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