TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/122589/12258900.018

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 5KB | 86 lines

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.