Missile blow to China's liberals
By Rowan Callick , Hong Kong
The "precision" NATO missiles that struck the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade on Friday night scored a huge
collateral hit on China's liberal and globalising
establishment.
The official sanctioning of the rage that followed over the
weekend, in city after city all over China, indicates that
hardline anti-Western leaders may be reassuming
elements of the foreign policy grip that they had lost over
the past few years.
The first and biggest casualty may be China's accession
to the World Trade Organisation.
The attacks on Western missions in China were the most
violent since those of Red Guards during the Cultural
Revolution 30 years ago.
The Government's official response to the missile attack,
in which four people were killed, including Mr Shao
Yunhuan, a journalist with the official press agency
Xinhua, described it as a "barbarian act". The Communist
Party's mouthpiece, People's Daily, editorialised that
NATO had deliberately "spilled Chinese blood".
Galvanised by the visit of Premier Mr Zhu Rongji to the
United States last month, negotiators from the US,
Europe and Japan had recently visited Beijing in an
attempt to finalise a deal for China's membership before
the next multilateral round starts later this year, in effect
shutting out entrants for a further two years.
China-US relations reached a peak last year after the
well-received week-long visit by President Bill Clinton,
following the US visit of President Jiang Zemin.
Since then, the relationship has gone through a stickier
patch, over the defence of Taiwan, the alleged theft of
nuclear secrets by a Chinese-American scientist, the
jailing of the leaders of the embryonic Chinese
Democratic Party, and the still-widening trade gap, with
China assuming from Japan the biggest balance in its
favour.
But the pragmatic, frank, and dry Mr Zhu was given a
warm reception and media accolades in the US, and the
relationship appeared to be back on track.
The early stridency of Chinese attacks on the NATO
bombing had been toned down ~ particularly since the
unnerving demonstration by 15,000 members of the Fa
Lun Gong sect in Beijing a fortnight ago in order to avoid
encouraging public outbursts that might become the
occasion of protests on domestic issues too.
Now the gloves are off and, as nationalist fervour builds
in China towards the 50th anniversary of the founding of
the People's Republic on October 1, anti-Western
sentiment may be expected to continue to build.
This may also act as a handy distraction from any
attempts within China to mark the 10th anniversary on
June 4 of the Tiananmen massacre. The association of
democracy with the West, and especially with the United
States, which is viewed in China as synonymous with
NATO, will seriously diminish sympathy with anyone
seeking to use the anniversary to campaign for greater
democracy or liberalisation at home.
Mr Zhu was already facing a Herculean task to convince
stuttering domestic industries that they might be the
ultimate beneficiaries from the concessions he has already
made in WTO negotiations.
Now he faces a far harder task to assemble the political
support needed to make further liberalising progress,
including on measures outstanding with Australia such as
on wool, barley, sugar, cotton, fresh fruit and vegetables.
Australia already stands to benefit from the recently
announced liberalisation of the finance and
telecommunications sectors.
But if the WTO bid fails, even concessions already
announced may yet be withdrawn such is the sourness in
Beijing. The business world of the NATO countries, and
especially US corporations that have pressed
Washington hard to accept China's accession, would be
furious initially, at least, with their own governments.
The change in China's mood, reinforcing the recently
outmoded pro-Russian and pro-Third World positions of
leaders such as Mr Li Peng, who is second in the
Communist Party hierarchy, threatens to isolate Mr Zhu
and his supporters on the issue of trade liberalisation.
Floundering State businesses were waving the flag of
patriotism as a last resort to ward off new foreign
competitors; now they may be relieved, as they find their
campaign strikes a winning note.
Much will depend on which route President Jiang, the
canny opportunist who has succeeded the late Mr Deng
Xiaoping as China's paramount leader, now chooses to
take behind which camp he will swing his decisive
support.
China was strongly opposed to NATO's action from the
first not least because of the precedent it feared over
intervention relating to its own unhappy province of Tibet,
and to its claimed "rebel province", Taiwan.
The strength and pervasiveness of Chinese anger over the
attack on the embassy was demonstrated by the range of
protests over the weekend.
A mob stormed the US Consulate in Chengdu, the
capital of the central Chinese province of Sichuan, setting
on fire the Consul-General's house, the reception area
and the computer room, before firefighters put out the
blaze and 2,000 baton-wielding People's Liberation
Army troops cleared the building.
In Beijing, thousands, led by students from the capital's
most prestigious universities, chanted in English slogans
such as "down with US imperialism", "pay blood debts in
blood", "down with US running dogs" and "Clinton is
Hitler" the last reflecting images commonly reproduced in
Chinese newspapers since the war began between
NATO and Serbia.
They gathered in the usually quiet, leafy, diplomatic area
of Beijing, many arriving by chartered buses, and hurled
stones, smashing windows in the US Embassy, attacking
cars owned by US diplomats, burning US flags, and
hurling bricks and bottles at the adjacent British
Embassy.
In Shanghai, thousands also gathered, as in Beijing many
following university banners, to throw bottles and eggs at
the US Consulate, where a roar greeted the lowering of
the American flag.
And crowds also formed to protest outside NATO
consulates in the southern city of Guangzhou.
The US Embassy has warned its citizens to stay off the
streets in China after reports of verbal harassment.
afr.com.au
|
