China billed last week’s goose-stepping gala as a celebration of progress. But apart from a high-tech, modernist veneer, it looked far more like a throwback to the cold war. A float bearing a giant portrait of Jiang followed those of his predecessors: Mao the Revolutionary, and Deng Xiaoping the Reformer. To cement his own legacy as China’s supreme leader, Jiang aims to become known as the “Great Reunifier.” His bid for immortality is a unification of the motherland, winning back the stray bits of turf, like Hong Kong and Taiwan, that foreign aggressors had helped tear away when China was weak. Perhaps for that reason Friday’s event, Beijing’s first military parade in 15 years, featured the debut of the “East Wind” DF-31 solid-fuel ICBM, a missile capable of reaching American shores. Just as pointedly, a formation of Russian-made Su-27 fighters roared overhead, evidence of a newly declared “strategic partnership” with Moscow (the two nations began their first-ever joint naval exercises last week). In a bizarre mix of old-fashioned force and stylish pomp, the thousands of marching soldiers included female civil militia in red berets, miniskirts and black boots, prompting one Western observer to compare the parade to “a musical produced by Busby Berkeley and Leni Riefenstahl.” Yet for all the spectacle, the show was seen mainly as a blunt warning to both Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province, and to Washington, which is committed to providing Taipei with defensive arms. The message seemed to be this: China will never give up Taiwan, and someday its patience may run out.
Viewed from Washington, the celebration was another puzzling instance of the schizoid face, alternately friendly and frightening, that China often presents. It was only two weeks ago, in Auckland, New Zealand, that a smiling Jiang sat down with President Clinton for an hourlong chat, agreeing on everything from arms proliferation to intervention in East Timor. The congenial outcome led national-security adviser Sandy Berger to declare that U.S.-China relations–which had been icy since U.S. planes bombed Beijing’s embassy in Belgrade in May–were “back on track.” Both sides announced they would resume talks soon to bring China into the World Trade Organization, a move that will open its markets as never before.
But last week, on the eve of the parade, Jiang turned his other face again. Despite two deadlines bearing down–new global trade talks begin in November, and Congress may adjourn before it can vote on the deal–he failed to send Long Yongtu, one of his chief WTO negotiators, to Washington; instead Long’s boss made a perfunctory visit. The Chinese “have not engaged yet in any substantive negotiations,” a U.S. official close to the talks told NEWSWEEK.
Even Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, the West’s favorite reformer and economic czar, was no help. Last week, in a speech to Western businessmen, he lashed out at Taiwan, an issue he rarely broaches. Zhu, the third-ranking official in China, risked his reputation during an April visit to the United States by abruptly conceding almost all of Washington’s demands for quick and substantial cuts in tariffs on everything from telecommunications to agricultural products. During the trip, Zhu charmed business execs from New York to Chicago with his wry, self-deprecating jokes. But he was rebuffed by Clinton, who feared the reaction of a Sinophobic Congress then caught up in a scandal involving allegations of widespread Chinese espionage in U.S. nuclear labs. Zhu paid the price when he was branded a traitor by party hard-liners for his WTO concessions. Now Zhu warned that Washington had better stop harping on Taiwan, “otherwise sooner or later it will lead to an armed resolution.”
The obvious question arises: which Jiang is the real Jiang, which Zhu the real Zhu? And which side of them represents the real China? The answer is simple: both sides do. Beijing’s leaders, autocrats who must increasingly play politician, are today cautiously straddling two major mind-sets in China. On the one hand, Jiang and Zhu must legitimize themselves in the eyes of the communist hard-liners–like Jiang’s influential second-in-command, Li Peng–and their party must do the same in the eyes of the Chinese people. And in a post-ideological era when communism has withered away, invoking nationalism seems to be what works: hence Jiang’s rhetorical obsession with Taiwan. Nationalist sentiment is surging; even Zhu’s promises to severely cut China’s tariffs under WTO prompted charges he was selling the country into “economic prostitution.”
On the other hand, both Jiang and Zhu know, as do the hard-liners, that opening up China is the only real road to success. Hovering ever in the back of their minds is the lesson of the Soviet Union, which collapsed when its closed, centrally led economy failed to compete in an arms race with the United States. Former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, who met with Zhu during a trip to China last week, told NEWSWEEK that the Chinese leaders he saw “expressed a commitment to moving ahead.” Rubin said his impression was that the Chinese realize that turning their old state-owned factories and banks into market-based operations will cause huge unemployment, and possibly social unrest. “But they also know,” said Rubin, “that the only way to get to a successful economy for the long term is to work their way through those problems.”
Jiang’s personal challenge–finding a way through it all while maintaining stability–is also the critical problem for U.S.-China relations. China, many U.S. observers believe, is at a crucial cusp of history: either become, increasingly, a respected and welcome member of the world community or remain largely closed and perhaps pursue, ever more single-mindedly, great-power ambitions in Asia. Or somehow try to do both at once. U.S. officials say they can hope only to nudge Beijing in the right direction, away from isolation and toward global integration. And in this effort, getting China into the WTO, says former U.S. ambassador James Lilley, “is a watershed mark in Chinese history.”
Perhaps. But the focus on WTO represents, all in all, a relatively humble approach by Washington toward influencing China. U.S. policymakers once took a rather patronizing view of Beijing. After Nixon’s opening in 1972, China acted mostly as a cold-war counterweight to Moscow. Today Washington is engaged with–and beholden to–Beijing on many different levels. One example: China, America’s putative rival, proved to be the hero of last year’s Asian financial crisis by keeping its currency firm; Japan, a U.S. ally, turned out to be the villain by failing to spur its economy. Is “constructive engagement” of such a nation appeasement, as Clinton’s critics say, or smart policy?
Last week’s National Day celebrations served up another reminder of the limits to Washington’s influence. The $36.5 million parade alone was a frightful spectacle of how much mass control the party still exercises. To prepare, Beijing was placed under virtual martial law. Authorities swept hundreds of thousands of activists, beggars and vendors from the streets. Animal-control commissars, fearing rabies, beat dogs to death on the spot if their owners failed to produce proper papers. Altogether, National Day ‘99 was a rebuke to a whole generation of U.S. Sinologists who have been overoptimistic about democratic change in China. Despite a fitful dalliance with openness over the years and a 20-year experiment with free markets, the Communist Party is still in command. And it’s simply not giving much ground to democracy.
In the past, democracy and human rights in China were huge issues back in Washington, especially heading into a presidential election year. But the mood is calmer now, and the leading GOP and Democratic candidates seem less likely to make China engagement a major campaign issue–unless, of course, Taiwan heats up again. “I think everybody from both the politicians and the press,” says a senior administration official, “has been chastened by the China spy experience”–referring to the allegations of espionage just before Zhu’s visit that many now consider to have been exaggerated. Still, the official admits the administration may have missed the moment for WTO in April, and that Washington failed to fully comprehend the domestic political pressures on Zhu and Jiang. “We missed each other’s signals in April,” says the official.
That failure was costly. Six months later Beijing looks unwilling to offer the same concessions that Zhu brought to Washington. All Clinton officials can do is hope for a re-emergence of Jiang’s friendlier side–when he takes off his Mao suit, that is. “Auckland was a clear indication that Jiang has held the course for a strategic relationship with the U.S.,” insists a senior administration official. But the Chinese president may need more time to establish his nationalist bona fides–and let the martial mood of Oct. 1 pass–before he can again put on the face of a reformer.
