Politic-Economic-Society-Tech

US policy watchdog no friend of Beijing 

By Tim Shorrock 

WASHINGTON - Question: What does Micheal Ledeen, a national security fanatic at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a bit player in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, have in common with George Becker, the fiery union leader who became a hero to the US Left for mobilizing labor opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in 1999? 

Answer: Both men are members of the US-China Security Review Commission established by Congress last year to investigate the national security implications of US-China relations. Created in the wake of the intense debate about granting normal trading status to China, this obscure commission quietly began its work in July with a hearing on China's entry into the WTO. 

A second hearing on trade issues is scheduled for August 2, to be followed the next day with a hearing on security issues, two hearings in September on export controls and Chinese fundraising in the United States, and another hearing in November on WTO issues. Under the legislation drafted by West Virginia Senator Robert C Byrd as part of a Defense Authorization Bill, the commission's final report will be delivered to Congress next March. 

At first glance, the Left-Right combination of Ledeen and Becker may appear to be a strange-bedfellows act. But appearances deceive: these men symbolize a powerful new political force in Washington that unites elements of the liberal Left and the far-Right around a foreign policy laced with economic nationalism that sees China, and the communists who run it, as the most serious long-term threat to US national security interests in the world today. 

In his many speeches on trade, Becker frequently describes China as a mortal enemy that hasn't changed its basic character since 1949. "This is the same communist China we faced 50 years ago in in Korea," he said in a speech to a business group last May. Praising the massive US military presence in Northeast Asia, he continued, "Tens of thousands of American boys are now in military encampments around China, on the sea, in the air and on the ground. And for good reason." 

Now hear Ledeen, writing in the conservative magazine National Review during the Hainan Island spy plane incident earlier this year. Over the past 10 years, "China has become more repressive as it has become wealthier," Ledeen wrote. "And yet their political vision remains unchanged, a vision of a proud, powerful, dominating nation imposing its will on its neighbors, its region, and its distant American enemy. And yet we have not come to grips with this terrible reality, and we have not recognized the terrible blunder we have committed, and continue to commit, by giving Beijing the wherewithal to realize their ominous vision, a vision dramatically clarified by their act of piracy in international air space against an unarmed aircraft." 

In addition to Ledeen and Becker, key members of the commission include James R Lilley, the former US ambassador to China who once served as Beijing station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency; Roger W Robinson, a former member of president Ronald Reagan's National Security Council who chairs the William J Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy, a right-wing military think tank; Michael Wessel, a political consultant who once prowled the halls of Congress as chief legislative aide for House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt; Stephen D Bryen, a former deputy under secretary of defense known as a hardliner on China, particularly on export controls; and C Richard D'Amato, a former top aide to Senator Byrd and president of a Washington corporate consulting firm. 

The commission's purpose was laid out on June 14 by D'Amato, a Democratic appointee who serves as chairman. During the Cold War, D'Amato explained, the US kept "economic ties to some extent compartmentalized" from foreign policy. "But with China now becoming America's primary international protagonist, and with America's focus shifting away from Europe to the Pacific as our primary region of interest in the new century, all parts of the relationship are increasingly related to each other." 

To maintain vigilance over China, D'Amato said the commission would report to Congress on several key areas, including the portion of trade China dedicates to improving its military, the acquisition by China of "dual use" technologies, Chinese government policies "regarding the pursuit of military competition with, and leverage over, or cooperation with, the United States and the Asian allies of the United States", and the effects on US national security interests of China's use of financial instruments in global capital markets. 

"You must develop a full understanding of the complexities surrounding the transfer of economic resources from America to China, including the huge annual surpluses on China's trade account and the mushrooming infusions of US equity capital onto Chinese soil," Byrd instructed the commission. "An assessment of the overall effect of the transfer of resources on the long-term security interests of the United States - particularly focusing on the US role in supporting peace and stability in the Pacific region - is what we are after." 

To be sure, not everyone on the commission is a hardliner towards China. But it is clearly dominated by people who see China as an enemy nation and favor much closer relations with Taiwan. And with outspoken critics of China such as Ledeen, Becker, Robinson and Bryen playing key roles, its conclusions are almost certain to be weighted towards confrontation with Beijing. 

In a sense, the commission is the lasting political legacy of the coalition created last year to oppose Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China. Led by the AFL-CIO, a federation of America's labor unions, and Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, the coalition lobbied aggressively against PNTR in close collaboration with such stalwarts of the Right as perennial Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan (who spoke at a labor rally against PNTR), the pro-military American Legion and the virulently anti-abortion and anti-China Family Research Council. 

While these groups frequently diverge over domestic social policy, they are united in their distrust of China, their support for Taiwan, and their disdain for anyone who sees the Beijing government as a legitimate partner in world affairs. 

Although the Left-Right forces lost last year's fight against PNTR, they have not stopped their activities to against expanded trade with China and Chinese membership in the WTO. The anti-China rhetoric has picked up since the spy plane furor and China's recent arrests of US citizens, and will continue through the next few months as Congress once again debates granting PNTR to China following its recent agreement to join the WTO later this year. 

That was clear this week when the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on PNTR that featured four prominent critics of China from both parties, led by Republican Dana Rohrbacher and Republican Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat. They led the Left-Right coalition in Congress that unsuccessfully fought PNTR last year and hope to reignite the struggle again this year. 

Here's what Rohrbacher had to say: "A few months ago, this very same government forced an American aircraft out of the sky in an attempt to murder the American crew, and then held that crew hostage," he said. "Communist China is a monstrous threat. It is America's most dangerous potential adversary. We all know that." Rohrbacher compared China's leaders to Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, saying that "we made some very serious errors in dealing with tyrannies in the 1930s and we're making the same errors with China today." 

The US China-Commission appears to have been created to mollify that coalition's strength in Congress, which cuts deeply through party lines. Its other members are June Teufel Dreyer, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, another conservative think tank; Kenneth Lewis, a former shipping executive who once served on a presidential commission on US-Pacific trade and investment policy but is little known in Washington policy circles; Patrick A Mulloy, a former assistant secretary of commerce for market access and compliance under president Bill Clinton; and William A Reinsch, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a business group that opposes economic sanctions of all kinds, and a former undersecretary of commerce for export administration, also under Clinton; and Arthur Waldron, director of Asian studies at the conservative but pro-business American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - Lilley is also affiliated with the AE). 

D'Amato, the chairman, and Ledeen, the vice chairman, were appointed by Democrats and Republicans, respectively. The other Democratic nominees were Becker, Lewis, Mulloy, Reinsch and Wessel; Bryen, Dreyer, Lilley, Robinson, and Waldron were appointed by Republicans. 


source: Asia Times Online, July 13, 2001