The China Debate: Morality, Free Trade and National Interest
Summary
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on
normalizing trade relations with China. The debate perfectly
illustrates the tensions between morality and national interest,
which pull powerfully on American foreign policy. While this
tension has longstanding, historical roots it also creates great
uncertainty in the world about the true direction of U.S. strategy.
Analysis
The sound and fury of the congressional debate over granting China
permanent normal trade status belies its actual impact. The outcome
appears to be a foregone conclusion and, at least immediately,
passage would have little practical impact. But the debate provides
a fascinating window into the paradoxes of American foreign policy
and the intellectual forces shaping it.
Most foreign policies are shaped by dire necessity. Intellectual
and ideological considerations are luxuries. But in the American
case, the luxury of intellectualization can be afforded; the
country's extraordinary power allows it to frame policy in terms
other than simple necessity. This phenomenon drives the rest of the
world nuts, because it leads to strange and unpredictable action;
the war over Kosovo was one.
Nevertheless, foreign policy - at this moment in history - is not a
matter of national survival for the United States. The debate over
China revolves around three issues: human rights, free trade and
national security. Each cuts to the heart of American political
culture and, in fact, across ideological grounds. And this image
is a snapshot of the American moral dilemma.
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Begin with the idea of human rights: since its founding the United
States has seen itself as more than just another regime. It has
seen itself as a moral exercise, an attempt to create a regime
founded not merely on national culture but universally applicable
moral principles. The idea of "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness," under an equality derived from creation itself was not
something to be applied only to Americans, but to all humans.
Regimes that have not accepted this doctrine have been seen as
morally defective and inferior.
But from the beginning - up through the present day - the United
States has been torn between its vision of moral superiority and
the practical necessity of survival among nations. George
Washington suggested that avoiding foreign entanglements could
preserve moral superiority; the problem was that foreign
entanglements did not wish to avoid the United States.
All along, the United States has wrestled with the notion of
cooperating with regimes it found morally offensive, regardless of
ideology. During the Cold War in the early 1980s, for example,
conservatives condemned the Soviet Union on moral grounds and
sought to isolate - and even attack it - based on its role as an
"evil empire." Liberals argued that the national interest, avoiding
war, required cooperation and conciliation. At the exact same time,
roles reversed on the question of South Africa, as liberals
demanded punitive isolation and conservatives sought engagement.
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Consistent inconsistency has proven more significant and resilient
than any particular case. The fact is that human rights and
national security are in constant competition within American
foreign policy, dividing the nation on issue after issue, with
different factions constantly changing sides. Inconsistency is what
is important, not the various hypocrisies that grow from it.
The debate over China today is a mirror image of previous ones.
Before Richard Nixon went to Beijing in 1972, paving the way for
diplomatic recognition, liberals argued that the United States
could not isolate a quarter of the world's population. On the heels
of Mao's waves of repression, conservatives argued that his regime
had to be quarantined. Today, liberal human rights activists and
conservative moralists are in agreement on punishing Beijing, while
other liberals and conservatives argue that reform will only flow
from engagement.
This leads us to the second axis of American ideology. Arrayed
against political morality is the economic morality built around
the doctrine of free trade. Though never embedded in the
Constitution, free trade has a similar intellectual heritage in
English liberalism, growing from the idea that the pursuit of
happiness means the pursuit of property - unlimited by political
intrusion - as the best way to guarantee individual happiness and
national tranquility. Today it has emerged as a broader doctrine in
which free trade promises not only increased prosperity but also
eliminates the causes of war. Even more radically, the argument is
made that free trade can reform regimes that violate human rights,
like China's.
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This doctrine is dogma among the American political elite. George
W. Bush and Al Gore both believe it, as do all living former
Presidents. Now, there is certainly a strong element of self-
interest in the elite's belief; many of them make a great deal of
money from foreign trade and, in particular, from trading with
China. Regardless, the philosophy behind the economic proposition
is the same.
The moral opposition to free trade with China is equally
fascinating. On the one side there are unreconstructed anti-
Communists who see China as being engaged in a massive strategy to
gain superiority over the United States, indeed with the economic
help of the United States. Labor unions see China threatening their
economic interests with cheap exports. Pat Buchanan and Richard
Gephardt are as allied as Gore and Bush.
And so different understandings of what is right collide - not just
in China but around the world. Liberals, for example, tend to
believe in multiculturalism, not only in the U.S. but globally;
they then turn around and condemn nations from China to Saudi
Arabia for engaging in cultures that truly differ from the American
model. Conservatives with links to financial interests in China
raise warnings about China's intentions around the world - but
happily do business with Chinese economic interests
All of this is further compounded by one more factor: the concept
of national interest. Today, there is deep confusion over this
notion. From the beginning, it was not clear whether the national
interest was in spreading influence throughout the world or
preserving the physical security of the United States. Sometimes
these went hand in hand. At other times, there were bitter choices
to be made. The concept of national interest and national security
has confused the United States like few other nations.
This confusion only deepens when the notion of national interest
collides with the doctrines of human rights and free trade. Does
free trade with China enhance or reduce national interests? Is the
national interest bound up with human rights or is it independent
of it? What if pursuing human rights in China undermines the
national interest? What national interest can be undermined if the
moral principles of the regime are protected?
In time of crisis, when survival itself is at risk, these abstract
concepts fall to the wayside. When the chips are down, the United
States has always done what it needs to do in order to survive and
enhance its power. Crisis clarifies intent.
The problem occurs when, as today, there is no crisis, no
fundamental threat to American prosperity or national security. It
is at this point that the incredibly complex fault lines of U.S.
foreign policy emerge. Paradoxically, this is not much of a threat.
It is a luxury the United States can afford to indulge.
But the confrontation matters a great deal to the countries on the
receiving end of this debate. Incoherence in U.S. foreign policy
creates uncertainty in the world. This mattered little in, say,
1804, when U.S. foreign policy had little impact. In 2000, however,
its effect on the world is massive.
To be certain, China is a bit of a special case. It is as self-
absorbed as the United States and its dependence on this particular
piece of legislation is minimal. China is far more interested in
its internal power struggles than it is in the World Trade
Organization, regardless of what its leadership claims.
Nevertheless, as an empirical matter, the United States' inherent
inability to formulate an intellectually coherent foreign policy
creates unease as the world observes the estrangement of American
intellect and American power.
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(c) 2000 WNI, Inc.
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