Bush's Re-election May Improve U.S.-China Ties

Pacific News Service, Commentary, George Koo, Posted: Nov 08, 2004


Editor's Note: The economies of the U.S. and China are simply too intertwined for the United States to support Taiwanese calls for independence, the writer says.

The re-election of George W. Bush, bodes well for the future of the bilateral U.S.-China relations. This is not because Bush finds in Hu Jintao, China's leader, a bosom buddy like he has in Russian leader Vladmir Putin.

Rather, part of the reason for closer ties is the increasing U.S. dependence on China to resolve the impasse with North Korea. Even though the United States and the North Koreans still talk pass each other and not at each other, at least the six-country talks, hosted by China, give the parties an opportunity to find resolution.

Secondly, China is now the second-largest holder, next to Japan, of U.S. national debt. A recent offering of treasury notes, when met with lack of foreign participation, sent a distinct chill down the spine of intermediaries that handle such transactions.

From the U.S. perspective, deliberate belligerence toward a major financier of the American government would not seem prudent nor in our national interest.

Deterioration of the dollar is also contrary to China's national interest, and thus China is constrained to prop up the U.S. economy by continuing to buy U.S. treasuries. Mutually assured destruction of the two major economies is not a prospect anyone could contemplate with equanimity.

The bilateral relation could have been in for a much tougher sledding had John Kerry been elected, not because John Kerry is a dedicated China basher but because the China bashers from the Republican right wing would have been unleashed.

As they did in the Clinton years, the China bashers in Congress used real and imagined grievances against China to find fault with the administration in power. With Bush returning to power, the right wing will stay tethered. The left wing bashers will find China bashing, without the connivance of the right, like firing duds.

Just before the election, Secretary of State Colin Powell, went to Beijing. He surprised everyone by declaring, "There is only one China. Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation, and that remains our policy, our firm policy."

Needless to say, this caused a great deal of consternation and anguish in Taiwan Chen Shui-bian's government. The senior American official in Taipei, Douglas Paal, tried to assuage Chen's anxiety by clarifying that Powell really meant "peaceful resolution" and not "peaceful unification."

Actually according to the transcript released by the State Department of an interview with CNN International Powell used "reunification," which is the first time ever an American official has directly suggested such an outcome.

Is the Bush administration giving a signal that it is ready to depart from its past position of "strategic ambiguity"? Or is Colin Powell seeking to leave a personal legacy? Most observers do not expect Powell to serve a second term.

After Powell's return to the United States, the administration seemed to have reverted to ambiguity as various spokesmen tried to overlay different spins on what Powell really meant.

China is not above practicing some ambiguity of its own. Just before Election Day, former vice premier and minister of foreign affairs, Qian Qichen blasted Bush's "doctrine of unilateralism" on the front page of China Daily.

Since Qian, now retired, is a private citizen, his views are not supposed to reflect Beijing's official position. Officially, President Hu Jintao congratulated Bush on his re-election and expressed desire for even closer cooperation.

Of course, no one is as masterful at conveying ambiguity as President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan. In his recent national day speech, he again expressed the desire to hold dialogue across the strait.

His speech did not surprise the White House since Chen was thoughtful enough to send an advanced copy to Bush for review -- action not exactly becoming of someone claiming to be head of a sovereign state. Chen, it seems, understood the limits of his independent stance.

Naturally, the White House and Powell applaud Chen's overture to the mainland. Unfortunately, Beijing flatly rejects Chen's gesture as lacking in sincerity. Beijing's distrust is grounded in Chen's insistence that Taiwan is an independent nation.

The solution to the cross-strait tension is really quite simple. The White House need only to tell Chen to behave and that any talk of independence is inflammatory and not in the U.S. national interest.

The threat of withdrawal of American support will help Chen focus on the benefits of discussing cross-strait integration rather than continuing the rhetoric for independence, which can only lead to tragedy.