WASHINGTON -- Even before President Clinton's return from China, many prominent Republicans concede that the trip has been a political success that could deprive their party of a potent election-year issue.
In a series of interviews, Republicans said they still have serious questions about the wisdom of Clinton's policy approaches toward Beijing. But as a political matter, there seems to be a consensus among Republicans that, at least for now, Clinton has overcome fears among Democrats that the trip would expose the president to damaging attacks on issues ranging from human rights to exporting satellite technology to China to campaign finance irregularities.
"I think it was a huge success," said Jack Kemp, the 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee, who faults the president for seeming to side with China against Japan. "That presents a problem to those Republicans or conservatives who want to make it an issue. I can't imagine that there's any great political benefit to be derived, because the president handled himself very well."
James Lilley, the ambassador to China in the Bush administration, put it this way: "Clinton got control of the agenda. He ran it like a campaign. And he made it into a political success story."
Though he thought the president has "swept under the rug" the issue of Chinese military modernization, Lilley said he has advised Republican congressional leaders to hold their fire and rethink how to handle China as a political issue. "I've counseled them to pull back on this one. Don't hit Clinton at his high point -- or it's going to sound like sour grapes."
Weeks ago, House Speaker Newt Gingrich had called upon Clinton to postpone the trip until the Justice Department determined whether two U.S. companies gave sensitive missile information to Beijing in 1996.
But speaking to reporters in San Antonio on Wednesday, where he was attending a Republican fund raising event, he praised Clinton. "I think the president did a pretty good job talking on Chinese radio and TV," Gingrich asserted. "It's less expensive to be friends than to be enemies."
Rich Galen, a phrase maker to the speaker, said, "They set the bar so low for success that the arrival ceremony looked like a limbo dance -- and he did better than expectations. You have to say this has been a successful trip for the president."
Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said of the Republicans: "I think they've lost it as an issue. People understand that one-quarter of the world's population is sitting in the middle of that Asian economy. We've got to know them better, and they've got to be partners of ours."
One explanation for Gingrich's praise is that he has been trying to repair relations with corporate executives who have soured on giving money to Republicans, and who have championed intensified trade with China.
The positive notices from Clinton's trip have already affected Republican legislative strategy. The Senate was expected to vote next week on a package of amendments sponsored by Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., that among other things would deny travel visas to Chinese officials involved in forced-abortion policies and prohibit new U.S.-backed international loans to China. But today, Senate officials said the vote had been put off by at least a week, partly out of concern that the amendments might not win a positive reception in the afterglow of the summit.
The upbeat reaction even led White House officials to take the unusual step of touting an editorial Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page is better known for harsh rebukes of the president. White House communications director Ann Lewis said she was so stunned by the unexpected praise that "I looked again -- it did not say April 1," April Fool's Day.
The editorial declared: "So we may break convention among the president's critics by saying we think Clinton has been doing well in China." (The Journal backed off in an editorial Friday, accusing Clinton of "kowtowing" to China over Taiwan.)
Many Republicans, and Democrats, do not expect the relative silence on Clinton and China to last. Several Republicans said that will depend in part on what polls show about the public reaction to the trip. And some Republicans may be more willing to speak out against Clinton after his arrival in Washington -- he is due back early Saturday morning -- out of a tradition that it is inappropriate to denounce a president while he is overseas.
While most polling organizations are waiting until the end of the trip to question Americans about whether it was a success, surveys beforehand showed wide public support for the president's trip. A New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted in early June found that about half of Republicans and two-thirds of Democrats thought Clinton should go to China.
Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., chairman of the International Relations Committee, said it was too early to know how the trip would play politically.
"The opportunity to talk to the Chinese people without any restrictions and focusing on the rights of individuals was a plus," he said. "The key question is how much else was accomplished? The Chinese achieved a number of important goals at our expense."
Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson said he believes that eventually Republicans can score political points. "It will take time for the splash of the trip and the media coverage to wear off and for the real substance of what went on to surface," he said. "As that happens and people begin to see the way he gave away the store, they're not going to like it."
Among other things, Nicholson said he was deeply concerned about China's missiles pointed at the United States, the President's comments about Taiwan's reunification with China, the fund raising scandals and Clinton's failure to meet with dissidents. "It was all carrot and no stick," he said.
Still, like many other Republicans, Nicholson's language was tamer than before the trip, when he said the president "will walk on the blood of those brave pro-democracy protesters."
But Romer countered that Clinton's performance exceeded his expectations. He had been particularly concerned, he said, about how the president would be perceived at the arrival ceremonies at Tiananmen Square, site of the government's bloody crackdown in 1989.
"I didn't know how he would perform personally -- there was tension with the Tiananmen Square thing," Romer said. "I was apprehensive."
Republican media consultant Michael Murphy predicted that the trip would provide nothing more than a short-term boost for Clinton. "It's not unlike the proverbial Chinese dinner: short-term in its splendor," he said. "It was a successful photo op, which is what they wanted."
While acknowledging that China has not become "a gripping national issue," Murphy added: "This is an emotional issue for a lot of us right wingers. We're just not big on freedom crushing, democracy despising foreign dictators."
from the ny times 7/3/98 |
