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China
yawns at Bush freedom
rhetoric
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - There's a reason China reacted
calmly to US President George W Bush's pledges to
"oppose tyranny" and "spread freedom" around the
world. "Morally conceited and military aggressive"
were about the best Beijing could or would muster
in response to Bush's inaugural address.
Beijing is confident that China is
becoming indispensable to the United States,
regardless of Bush's rhetoric in his second
inaugural speech, which some critics have claimed
bordered on hypocrisy.
President Bush's
January 20 second-term inaugural address, in which
he promised to draw sharp distinctions between
nations based on "oppression, which is always
wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right",
generated ripples throughout the world. Foreign
governments and commentators expressed alarm at
what they saw as the pursuit of a more aggressive
foreign policy that could worsen global tensions.
The Chinese government, however, had
little official reaction to the speech. But the
Communist Party's flagship paper, the People's
Daily, said Bush's speech showed that "being
morally conceited and militarily aggressive" are
hallmarks of US nationalism.
In a
commentary published a day after the inauguration,
the newspaper questioned the rationale behind
Bush's quest for world freedom, given the
"war-time atmosphere" and "tight security" of his
inauguration ceremony. "No banquet under the sun
will last forever," the article said. "After the
firework fades away, Washington is under a dark
sky," it added.
Commentators here also
scoffed at what they called a gulf between Bush's
lofty rhetoric and the practical demands of
thwarting terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Many of them stressed that Bush's goals are
unattainable without help from big countries such
as China and Russia.
Zhang Yebai, a US
expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
said that "following through on his [Bush's]
intentions would be difficult", given the need to
act with other nations, especially China, against
security threats in North Korea.
"The tone
of Bush's speech may seem high-pitched, but I
think the US can hardly afford to act unilaterally
on many of Bush's targets," Zhang said.
"Take North Korea, for instance. There are
four other countries, apart from the United States
involved in resolving the nuclear proliferation
issue on the peninsula, and China is chief among
them," the academic emphasized.
Across the
Taiwan Strait, the reaction was one of similar
skepticism. The Taipei Times said US-Taiwan
relations illustrate how Washington's
self-interest - the need to maintain good
relations with China - stands in the way of Bush's
vision.
The newspaper cited US unease at
Taiwan's plans, as some sectors strive for full
independence from China, to rewrite the
constitution and hold referendums. "If it is so
important to help oppressed people leave tyranny
behind, isn't it even more important to help free
people resist subjection to tyranny," it said.
The US sees China as its main long-term
rival for global dominance and is worried about
possible military conflict over Beijing's declared
desire to re-assert control over Taiwan, which the
United States has vowed to defend.
Analysts have described US-China relations
after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on
the US as the "best in modern history", but many
warn that Washington is deeply suspicious of
China's rise on the world stage.
"There
has not been a change in US strategic intentions
to eliminate what Washington calls their potential
competitors," said political observer Sun
Jinzhong.
US-China ties got off to a rocky
start in Bush's first term after Washington
redefined the bilateral ties as based on
competition rather than mutual cooperation.
Tensions were further heightened after a collision
between a Chinese fighter jet and a US spy plane
over the South China Sea just one month after Bush
took office in 2001.
China also opposed
the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and
most Chinese said they were against Bush's
re-election. However, US-China relations have been
mostly smooth over the past few years, with
China's economy and trade with Washington booming
at the same time.
In the aftermath of his
inaugural speech, the Bush administration and
members of the Republican Party denied that it
signaled a major shift in US policy. Bush's
father, former president George H W Bush, was
quoted as saying that the inaugural address was
meant to clarify existing policies - not set a new
militaristic course.
White House officials
said Bush's speech would not lead to any quick
shift in strategy for dealing with countries such
as Russia, Egypt and Pakistan, regarded as allies
in the fight against terrorism, but whose records
on human rights and democracy fall well short of
the values embraced in the inaugural address.
Although Bush did not cite any countries
by name, his new Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice has identified Cuba, Iran, North Korea,
Zimbabwe, Myanmar and Belarus as "outposts of
tyranny", where the US must help bring freedom.
"This is a clear signal that the US would
not stop after resolving Iran's nuclear problem,"
argued Wang Yiwei, an expert on US relations at
Shanghai's Fudan University. "The long-term goals
of Washington's foreign policy are to face up to
traditional US threats like China and Russia."
Wang said Bush's blueprint for his second
term seems to have substituted victory in the
global "war against terrorism" as its prerogative
with a broader platform of fighting for democracy
the world over.
"This is not by accident,"
Wang argued in the weekly Southern Weekend. "If
the war on terror forced Washington to cozy up to
China and Russia, then the broader pursuit of
democracy gives it room to attack its traditional
adversaries."
As an example, Wang cited a
recent decision by the Bush administration to
impose penalties against some of China's largest
companies for aiding Iran's efforts to improve its
ballistic missiles.
The United States has
also threatened to limit the European Union's
access to US military technology should the EU
decide to go ahead with its controversial decision
to lift its arms embargo against China, imposed
after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
On the latter however, Beijing seems to be
winning the battle. During his January visit to
Beijing, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
confirmed that the EU is likely to lift the ban on
arms sale to China in the next six months. US
officials argue that any easing of European
arms-control exports could influence the outcome
of potential military conflicts between China and
the US over Taiwan.
The EU's move to
dramatically upgrade relations with Beijing in the
face of opposition from the United States and
Japan has boosted China's confidence. Analysts
here speculate that during his second term, Bush
should pay more attention to France's and
Germany's ambition to weaken US hegemony by
creating a multipolar world where China would play
a major role.
Zhang from the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences said: "China, of
course, is worried about the unilateral trend of
the Bush administration, even more so now that
[outgoing secretary of state Collin] Powell is
going while hawks like [Secretary of Defense
Donald] Rumsfeld are staying."
"But we are
not alone on this one," he added. "The European
Union countries are worried too."
(Inter
Press Service) |
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