You should like the following article, as it will give you plenty of ammo to blame Big Business and some of their Republican backers.
It deals with lobbying efforts by former Republican and Democrat officials, as it relates to China, national security, and human rights.
I blame Clinton for failing to put National security first, and letting himself be bought. I'm sure you won't be surprised.
CHINA'S FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
Investor's Business Daily
April 15, 1999 Brian Mitchell
NATIONAL ISSUE
CHINA'S FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES Do Ex-Officials' Business Ties Compromise U.S.?
Date: 4/15/99
Author: Brian Mitchell
The Chinese call it ''guan-xi'' (pronounced gwan-she). Americans might call it access or entree.
It's the personal relationship between influential people that opens doors and makes things possible. In a socialist oligarchy like China, guan-xi is the key to everything - business as well as politics.
In a capitalist democracy like the U.S., guan-xi is a gold mine for former secretaries of state and other ex-officials, whose contacts in China are in great demand by American businesses.
It's also a future gold mine for current officials, who may someday join the growing pro-China business lobby, if they can avoid offending Chinese leaders.
Critics worry that such interests unduly influence U.S. thinking about China, causing policy-makers to downplay Chinese threats and equate U.S. interests with Chinese aims.
''There's an increasing corruption in Washington in foreign policy, where commercial interests are taking the higher priority, and where people go in and out of government and into the K Street lobbies,'' said a senior foreign policy official in the Reagan administration.
''The problem is that so many of these business interests don't give a darn about U.S. national security,'' he said.
The Clinton administration, with bipartisan support from ex-officials and American businesses, has forged a formidable consensus on granting China favorable trade relations.
But it's recently been challenged by revelations of Chinese espionage.
President Clinton recently broke off negotiations with China over joining the World Trade Organization, some suggest in response to embarassing press reports about Chinese spies stealing information from U.S. nuclear labs.
Trade talks are scheduled to resume next month in Beijing, though.
The White House defends its policy as good for both U.S. businesses and the growth of democracy in China. It says expanding commercial and cultural contacts with China will spawn an entrepreneurial class that'll pressure Beijing to become more democratic over time.
''The role of the business community has certainly grown since about 1992. If you look at the trade figures, you can see why,'' said a senior Clinton administration official.
Exports to China have more than doubled since 1991, while imports from China have nearly quadrupled. Imports from China amounted to $71 billion last year. That's 7.8% of all U.S. imports.
China ranked fourth in imports to the U.S. in 1998, after Canada (19.1%), Japan (13.3%) and Mexico (10.3%).
''If trade has played a larger role than in the past, that's simply a natural function of a commercial relationship that's been growing in leaps and bounds,'' the official said.
Still, some fans of free trade worry. ''We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that trade is mutually beneficial to the U.S. and China,'' said Dan Griswold, associate director of the Center for Trade Policy at the Cato Institute.
''But the bottom line is, we shouldn't be selling technology to China that it can turn around and apply to direct military use against our interests,'' Griswold said.
The boom in trade has coincided with a crackdown on dissidents by Chinese authorities. The State Department's 1998 report on human rights in China cited ''widespread'' abuses, including ''extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrests and detention.''
The report also faults China for slave labor, forced abortion, forced sterilization, trafficking in women and children, restrictions on religion and oppression of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang provinces.
The State Department's 1998 report on human rights in Yugoslavia accuses it of many of the same abuses. Not included, though, are slave labor, forced abortion, forced sterilization and trafficking in women and children.
''Otherwise, it would be hard without a label to tell which country was which if you just read the reports,'' said William Hawkins, an aide to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.
China has committed military and commercial espionage against the U.S. and poses an expansionistic threat to Taiwan and other neighbors. Yet the administration welcomed China's Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to Washington and still wants China to join the WTO.
Why the red carpet for Beijing? Many China watchers say there's money to be made - mounds of money - and some very influential people are already making it.
Consider the case of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was responsible for the thaw in U.S.-China relations that culminated in Nixon's visit to China in 1972.
Since leaving government service, Kissinger has operated a lucrative consulting business, Kissinger Associates, often using his China contacts to open doors for American businessmen.
He was also involved in a limited partnership called China Ventures, which invested in joint ventures with a company owned by the Chinese government.
At the same time, Kissinger has continued to comment publicly and advise government officials on U.S.-China relations. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Kissinger, as a paid consultant for ABC News, advised against imposing economic sanctions on China.
Since then, Kissinger has consistently opposed linking China's trade status with the U.S. to its record on human rights. He is also chairman of the America- China Society. Cyrus Vance, President Carter's secretary of state, is co-chairman.
Other ex-secretaries of state active in representing companies with businesses in China are Alexander Haig, George Shultz and Lawrence Eagleburger.
Shultz is on the board of Bechtel Corp., a construction company with interest in more than 60 projects in China, including two nuclear power plants. Eagleburger has done consulting work for Kissinger Associates, as has Brent Scowcroft, President Bush's former national security adviser.
Haig has assisted several companies in their dealings with China, including United Technologies Corp., which builds jet engines, helicopters and aerospace systems, and International Signal & Control Group, which sold weapons fuses to China.
Haig's ties to China go back to his days as chief of staff under President Nixon. As President Reagan's first secretary of state, he was responsible for the Chinese-American Joint Communique, committing the U.S. to the eventual reunification of Taiwan and the mainland.
Haig has actively lobbied members of Congress for favorable trade relations with China. He has served as an editorial adviser to China's ''Official Guide'' for American businesses, and he is a member of the honorary board for the U.S.-China Policy Foundation.
''None of these former secretaries of state can truly say they're speaking as elder statesmen in the national interest, because they're on Beijing's payroll, directly or indirectly,'' said the senior Reagan administration official.
Analysts find the dealings of former Defense Secretary William Perry even more troubling. Perry's ties to China date from his days in the Carter Pentagon. Later, in Clinton's Pentagon, he presided over the dismantling of controls on the transfer of sensitive military technology to China.
''He was man who invented the game. It wasn't happening before Perry, and he is single-handedly responsible for what's going on, after Clinton,'' said Ken Timmerman, director of the Middle East Data Project, who has written several articles on China's acquisition of military technology.
Perry is now Clinton's special envoy to North Korea. He is also on the board of both United Technologies and Boeing Corp. Boeing's airplane sales to China now total $18.5 billion.
Perry's close friend and colleague, Stanford University international studies Professor John Wilson Lewis, has partnered with a subsidiary of the People's Liberation Army to sell sophisticated telecom equipment to China. Timmerman says Perry helped Lewis get Pentagon permission for the sale.
Perry continues to warn publicly that suspicion and criticism of China will hurt U.S.-China relations. ''I would like to see a moderation of the rhetoric that persists in referring to China as an enemy,'' he said recently in Hong Kong. ''If we treat China as an enemy, it will surely become one.''
Security analysts also worry about National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Before joining the White House, Berger was with the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, which handled trade issues for China.
In the White House, Berger has been the chief architect of Clinton's policy seeking a ''strategic partnership'' with China. Critics also blame him for keeping quiet about Chinese espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
In recent years, China has come to rely more and more on its American business partners to represent its interests in Washington.
''They got very badly burned in 1996, when they went into this thing directly (with campaign contributions), and I think they've pulled back from that,'' said James Lilley, former U.S. ambassador to China.
Companies with substantial dealings with China include Boeing, Motorola Inc., AlliedSignal Inc., United Technologies and AT&T Corp.
Several key trade groups also back stronger U.S.-China business ties, including the National Association of Manufacturers, National Association of Retailers, U.S.-China Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
''I'm not saying they're paid lobbyists, but I can tell you this, the Chinese damn well expect them to go out and push the cause,'' Lilley said. ''This has been true right from the beginning to do business in China. It comes with the territory. 'You do business, you sing our tune.' '' |
