TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/122589/12258900.018

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 4.9 KB | 96 lines

                ╦α                                                            NATION, Page 32

Bush the Riverboat Gambler


His China overture risks a congressional backlash unless Beijing
responds


    This time, by golly, no one would call George Bush timid.
Quite the contrary, the President made a rare appearance as Bush
the riverboat gambler. By sending a high-level delegation to
Beijing to confer with Chinese authorities who only six months
earlier had ordered the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators
near Tiananmen Square, Bush knew he would stir up a hurricane
of outraged protest. And for what? The slender chance that China
would respond with concessions that could begin to melt the ice
in U.S. relations with the world's most populous nation.

    A week after the return of the envoys, National Security
Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger, the White House is still waiting for that payoff.
The Chinese leaders did promise not to sell missiles to Middle
Eastern countries. That, however, was merely a repetition of a
pledge first made more than a year ago. China also agreed to let
a Voice of America reporter into the country for the first time
since July. But if those are the only results of the
Scowcroft-Eagleburger mission, it will not lower the criticism
a decibel.

    The criticism may well be the angriest the Bush White House
has heard. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, using an
image taken up by many other critics, accused Bush of
"embarrassing kowtowing." Others assailed the surreptitious
nature of the mission -- it was announced in Washington at 2
a.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, after Scowcroft and Eagleburger had
already landed in Beijing -- and the obsequious nature of
Scowcroft's toast at a banquet. Scowcroft addressed the Chinese
rulers as "friends," referred oh-so- delicately to "the events
at Tiananmen" and described U.S. critics of the massacre as
"irritants" to Chinese-American relations.

    Administration sources say Scowcroft was blunter with the
Chinese in private, telling them that since the U.S. had made
the initial move to repair relations, Beijing had better
reciprocate, and soon. He gave that demand a sharp twist,
blaming the U.S. Congress for the frostiness in Sino-American
relations. Says a U.S. official: "Scowcroft made very clear to
the Chinese that our Congress is the main problem in the
U.S.-China relationship, and that if the relationship is as
important to them as it is to President Bush, they need to give
a positive response, or a series of them, by the time Congress
returns in late January."

    Some helpful responses, Administration sources indicate,
would include free passage out of China for Fang Lizhi, the
dissident astrophysicist who took refuge in the U.S. embassy in
Beijing last June and is still there; the lifting of martial law
in Beijing and Tibet; Chinese pressure on the murderous Khmer
Rouge to allow a political settlement in Cambodia, and amnesty
for pro-democracy demonstrators.

    If China still appears unresponsive when Congress
reconvenes on Jan. 23, the lawmakers might do two things:
override Bush's veto of legislation extending the visas of
Chinese students who fear persecution if they return home, and
enact economic sanctions stricter than those the Administration
reluctantly imposed in June. The disclosure last week that the
Administration is preparing to loosen the sanctions by allowing
export of three communications satellites to be launched by
Chinese rockets did nothing to improve the congressional mood.

    Why did the normally cautious Bush take such a risk? The
President and his aides feared that China was slipping into a
mood of angry isolation that would be no help for world
stability. Bush, who lived in Beijing as U.S. envoy for 13
months in 1974 and '75, fancies himself an old China hand. He
seems to rate preserving the carefully nurtured U.S. strategic
relationship with China well above human-rights considerations,
which he has always valued below the need for order and
stability in world affairs. When former President Richard Nixon
and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger returned from
exploratory trips to China with the news that Beijing wanted
closer relations but thought the U.S. should make the first
move, Bush judged the time to be right.

    Bush still resents being portrayed during the presidential
campaign as manipulated by handlers, and he is out to prove
that he can move boldly and effectively in foreign affairs. In
China he found an area where he thought he could rely on his
expertise to act. Explains White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater: "The President knew he would be criticized for this,
but he feels strongly that it's in our national interest to
improve relations with China. He feels he knows China as well
as anybody -- and better than his critics in Congress." The next
few weeks will tell whether that faith is well founded.