SPEC ra TAT OR The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL
Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603
MOST FAVOURED TYRANTS
F. ive years ago this week, events in Tiananmen Square in the centre of Peking were moving towards their terrible conclu- sion. The protesters who had been gather- ing there since mid-April to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party's dictator- ship were preparing one last coup de theatre: a plaster replica of the Statue of Liberty appeared on 30 May, staring across at the portrait of Mao Tse-tung which hung above the gates of the Forbidden City. On the night of 3-4 June, the Chinese Communist Party began its revenge. Sol- diers massacred civilians in the Peking streets and continued to do so in the days that followed — long after Tiananmen Square itself had been cleared. The specta- cle became one of pure terror, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, died. Its fifth anniversary is being marked in Peking with a. certain satisfaction by those responsible. History shows that anything conducive to our nation's stability is good', according to Jiang Zemin, China's president. A difficult moment, in sum, for America's president, Bill Clinton, to announce whether he intends to renew China's most-favoured nation trading privileges for the coming year, and so allow China's exports to continue entering the American market at concession- ary tariffs. Having attacked George Bush for being 'soft on tyrants', when Mr Bush upheld China's Most Favoured Nation status after Tiananmen, Mr Clinton pledged a year ago not to renew that status in 1994, unless China showed a greater respect for human rights, Particularly those of dissidents. The year has passed, China's human- rights record has deteriorated still further, and Mr Clinton is due to give his final deci- sion any day now. The expectation in Washington is that he will bow like Mr Bush before him to the arguments of busi- ness lobbies, and eat his words — renewing most if not all of China's MFN privileges, though perhaps proposing to exclude prod- ucts made by Chinese state-owned compa- nies, a gambit which would be attractive politically, but unenforceable in practice. If he yields, Mr Clinton will be bowing to arguments as specious as they are alarming. For all the economists' predictions that a withdrawal of MFN might cost China nine- tenths of its exports to the United States, and provoke retaliatory action from China costing 200,000 American jobs, the reality would be much less dramatic. The effect of withdrawing MFN would be to raise the tariffs on the sort of goods China sells into the United States to 55 per cent from 15 per cent now: enough to deliver a painful jolt to China's exporters, but no more so than currency fluctuations alone can achieve in the course of a turbulent year.
Whatever the consequences of withdraw- ing MFN, they would certainly be a lot more serious for China than for America: the American market takes about a third of China's exports, while China takes just 2 per cent of America's. As a way of putting pres- sure on China perceptibly but not destruc- tively, MFN would seem just about right. Worse, by backing away from the earlier pledge, Mr Clinton would be sending a clear signal to China that America did not care very much about its behaviour after all. Tragic for China, and dangerous for the West: the signals at such times are at least as important as the substance.
The advancement of human rights in China deserves to be championed in the West, even at a short-term cost, for two related reasons. First, because a China that can be persuaded to tolerate dissent will be a China much better placed to achieve a peaceful transition to post-communist rule. Second, because the long-term interests of the West will be best served by having a China which shares as far as possible the West's own values, foremost among them a respect for democracy and the rule of law.
China needs dissent, because without it there can be no preparation for political order beyond communism. Brave and bril- liant dissidents like Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan are the best people to help guide China towards a more liberal politi- cal order when the Communist Party finally collapses, and so stop it lurching from dic- tatorship straight into chaos. That is why the communists hate and fear them so much; and why the West should do all it can to make their voices heard.
The West has its own reason for wanting a democratic, liberal, law-abiding China: any other sort of China will be obstructive at best and dangerous at worst. Today, China befriends and arms diverse badhats like Kim Il-sung in North Korea. Tomor- row, as it grows richer, China will dominate an increasingly powerful Asia. Where China leads, much of Asia will follow.
Tiananmen showed that, even before communism's collapse overseas, there was a large and brave constituency that wanted China to move towards democratic govern- ment. The priority of the West, five years on, should be to encourage that constituen- cy. Trade leverage should certainly be used where the opportunity arises — attaching human rights conditions to China's read- mission to the Gatt, for example. China's communist rulers will react angrily, but that is not a good reason for wanting to please them. Theirs is too great a country to be run by a few bad men.
Previous page
