The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“U.S.-SINO RELATIONS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S14308-S14309 on Sept. 26, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
U.S.-SINO RELATIONS
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, last Friday I had the opportunity to speak before the Washington chapter of the Asia Society on the subject of U.S.-Sino relations. I would like to share that speech with my colleagues, and ask unanimous consent that the text be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Towards a New China Policy
I'm very pleased to be here this morning to inaugurate the Asia Society's new forum series featuring members of Congress with responsibility for Asian policy issues. I'm also pleased to see Ambassador Nathan of Singapore, the new Sri Lankan ambassador, and Minister Zhang Keyuan from the Chinese embassy are here with us today.
The Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which I chair, has jurisdiction over Asia from Burma and Mongolia east to the shores of California. As you are all well aware, this area is probably the most dynamic in the world right now. With China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam, it is the economic engine that will drive the world economy into the 21st Century and beyond.
Among all these established and developing economies, with 1.2 billion people, a GDP equivalent around $2.73 trillion, a national product real growth rate last year of 13.4 percent, it is clear that the chief economic and political ``tiger'' that will dominate Asia in the years to come is the People's Republic of China. As such, the dynamics of our bilateral relationship will become even more important--both for us and the other countries in the region--in the years ahead. The U.S.-Sino relationship is a major focus of the work of the subcommittee. Of the six substantive hearings the subcommittee has held this year, four have concerned the PRC; we are planning at least three more before the close of the year. It is that relationship which I have been asked to address this morning.
It will come as no surprise to those of you here this morning that the US-Sino relationship is not presently at its best. Since the administration's decision to admit Taiwan's President Lee for a private visit, we have seen the most serious deterioration of relations since the Tiananmen Massacre. I won't engage in a step-by-step analysis of each of the incidents which have afflicted our relationship in the past year for two main reasons. First, I believe that you are all intimately familiar with them and their recitation would be redundant. More importantly, however, I believe that the problem is much more fundamental than those issues.
The core problem in U.S.-Sino relations is that we lack a coherent and clearly articulated foreign policy. Unfortunately, the phrase ``Clinton foreign policy'' is an oxymoron. Instead, of having clear proactive policy goals, and making them and our strong commitment to them known to the countries concerned, this administration drifts from reaction to reaction. The pitfalls of this kind of reactive policy are clearly apparent in what's been going on in Bosnia; and they are clearly apparent in our relationship with the PRC.
In my view, for there to be a viable foreign policy between, say, country A and country B, you should be able to ask officials from A what its policy towards B is, ask B what A's policy towards B is, and get pretty close to the same answer from each. According to the Chinese, however, our policy towards them is one of containment. According to our State Department, it is one of ``constructive engagement.'' You can see the problem here--there is a very large conceptual gap between these two.
``Constructive engagement'' seems to me, and others I have spoken with, to be a bit vague. The administration describes it this way. Say there are 1,000 different individual issue strands that make up our over-all bilateral relationship. On some of the issues we're in complete agreement, others in partial agreement, and others in complete disagreement. So, we'll work on those areas where we might expect some progress, and not press those where we conflict. The administration calls this a policy. In my view, though, this is no policy at all, but 1,000 separate conflicting little policies. From what I hear from the Chinese, both officially and unofficially, they find it rather confusing as well.
This confusion is made worse by the domestic climate in each respective country. First, in the United States, there are the complications caused by the fact that nature, and the Congress, abhor a vacuum. When Congress perceives a lack of leadership on the foreign policy stage, it has traditionally been quick to step in and supply its own. This often leads to conflicting policies between the two branches and sends confusing signals abroad. A clear example is the visit of President Lee. The administration stated categorically that it would not issue a visa for Lee to pay a private visit to the United States. Both houses of Congress, on the other hand, made clear by overwhelming votes that he should be admitted.
In the P.R.C., the ongoing jockeying for power in the soon-to-be-post-Deng-Xiaoping era has also accentuated the problems in the bilateral relationship. In times of political flux in China, one of the tried and true ways of establishing one's conservative communist bona fides is to be stridently xenophobic. To be seen as coddling the United States, or giving in to its ``demands,'' can thus be the functional equivalent of political suicide. As a result, during periods of transition such as this Chinese reaction to incidents it considers provocations is often overblown for domestic consumption. I hate to keep coming back to Taiwan as an example, but I strongly believe the PRC's overreaction to our admitting President Lee--for an unofficial visit well within the parameters of the three joint communiques--is a direct result of its leadership courting the political support of the conservatives in the PLA.
So, ladies and gentlemen, given all these problems I believe that the time has come to reevaluate and restructure our China policy, and that reevaluation needs to start with the very core premise upon which it is built. I'm sure if you've ever listened to administration or PRC officials, read the Congressional Record or the People's Daily, or spoken with a variety of public policy figures, you have heard the oft-repeated statement that our two countries need to be good friends, or need to return to being good friends, or shouldn't let present frictions stand in the way of what should be our close friendship.
I would love for the U.S. to be close friends with China, but expecting us to be close friends at this point in history overlooks a fundamental problem: the PRC is a totalitarian state, a communist dictatorship; the United States is a democracy. Almost by definition, a close friendship between two such diametrically opposed systems is impossible. Friendships are based on shared aspirations, shared goals, shared dreams; but our most fundamental views of politics and human freedoms are poles apart. This is not a pessimistic view, or the view based on some anti-China bias, or a Republican view, or a conservative view; it is a reality. The Chinese are rightly fond of their proverbs, and I would invoke one here to illustrate my point: ``Hu lu bu tong xong''--``Tigers and deer do not walk together.'' To delude ourselves into thinking that as countries we will be anything near close friends is just that, a delusion.
I think both we and the Chinese government have to recognize that there are certain fundamental issues upon which, under our present political systems, we will never agree and which realistically preclude the kind of relationship we have with other countries in the region such as Japan. Having said that, however, I would note it does not mean that we can't establish a constructive working relationship with them based on areas where we have shared interests. I think that it's the difference between the friendship among close personal friends and a friendship based on, say, a business relationship. For example, it's the difference between my friendship with fellow Wyoming Senator Al Simpson and my friendship with Chinese Ambassador Li Daoyu. I grew up in Wyoming with Al, went to the same high school; the two of us have shared experiences and ideals that have made us the best of friends. Ambassador Li and I have a different friendship. I enjoy our meetings, I find our contacts helpful and informative, but our friendship is primarily business-based; there is not that closeness, nor would we either of us expect that there would be.
What our two countries need to do, then, is start over from that point, and work to reshape the very nature of our bilateral relationship. We need to build that relationship around a core of mutual respect and our shared goals. We need to state what the parameters of the policy are, and then we need to stick to them. In that way there are no surprises, no unmet expectations, no confusion on either side.
The most obvious area where we share interests is in the economic sphere. It is a symbiotic relationship; we have the technological know-how and the products, they have the desire to expand their economy and the almost unlimited market. This is probably our most stable and dependable commonality, problems with the rule of law and intellectual property rights aside. This stability is illustrated by the fact that during the recent downturn in our relationship, our economic ties remain relatively unscathed. Consequently, trade would probably be a good place to start to restructure the basis of the relationship. Secondly, we both have a general interest in maintaining a stable Asia. Instability endangers markets, endangers both our national security interests, and alienates and endangers our relationships with other countries in the region. This provides another base from which to build.
There will continue to be areas of real disagreement between us. But I believe that by mutually redefining our relationship (and I do not mean here, for the benefit of the Chinese government, in any way redefining our commitment to the three communiques or the ``one China'' policy) we can perhaps minimize the effect those disagreements have on our bilateral relationship. I think that by being a bit more realistic about what kind of friendship we can have, we will somewhat lower our mutual expectations. When expectations in a relationship are lowered, blows to that relationship tend to have less of a disruptive impact.
Let me note in closing that I am not an Asia expert. Many of you in this room this morning have been pursuing Asian affairs for decades. I do not pretend to know all the nuances and eddies and currents of this part of the world. But let me quote once again a Chinese proverb: ``Dang ju zhe mi, pang guan zhe qing''-- ``Observers can see a chess game more clearly than the players.'' Perhaps it is time for a fresh approach.
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