In putting their stamp of approval on Most-Favored-Nation status for China, Republicans and Democrats in Congress displayed "bipartisan solidarity in the defense of the indefensible."
In a front-page article in its Independence Day issue, the national conservative weekly Human Events warns that China has "abandoned its ancient commitment to self-containment. It has become a massive, if embryonic, imperial power possessed of all the requisite people, resources, geographical advantages, and nationalistic fervor needed to emerge in the 21st Century as one of the most malignant and menacing forces in the history of nations."
Human Events challenges the comforting assumptions that "massive infusions of American capital can somehow engender American political values, [that] China will go the way of the old Soviet Union [and that] exposure to Western money and Western culture will force China to collapse from within, giving rise to an Asian democracy." The newspaper reminds the bipartisan buddies inside the beltway that "the Soviet Union did not collapse from exposure to Western capital and technology, but, in good part, from the lack of it." It emphasizes that "what has arisen from the ashes of Mao's burnt-out revolution is no new democracy, but a neo-fascist state."
What use is China making of Western capital and technology? "Even though it faces no external threat, China is increasing its military spending faster than any other nation," Human Events reports. "It is moving rapidly to build air and naval forces that in the short term will be able to credibly threaten Taiwan and in the long term will challenge the United States for domination of the Pacific. The Chinese are scouring the world for the technology and cash they need to build the accurate, reliable long-range missiles they will need to credibly threaten to vaporize cities in the western United States."
Human Events argues that Most Favored Nation trade status "has allowed the regime in Beijing to convert its control of China's major national indus-tries into a steady stream of U.S. capital and know-how. U.S. multinational corporations," the newspaper points out, "have gladly transferred cash and technology to the Chinese government in return for the opportunity to exploit cheap Chinese labor to produce goods that can be sold at high profits back in the United States."
With its takeover of Hong Kong, China now enjoys "the richest trade center and the best deepwater port in Asia," Human Events observes. "In 1999, the process will be repeated in the Portuguese protectorate of Macao -- a second great trade center and port on the South China Sea. The next objective will be Taiwan," the newspaper predicts, warning that "the showdown with America over Taiwan is inevitable."
There's nothing wrong with entertaining hopes that the benefits of commerce and cultural exchange will encourage China to stop threatening its neighbors and tyrannizing its own people. But wise men do not let desire impair their perception of reality. Common sense dictates that we proceed cautiously, so as not to enhance China's ability to wreak havoc. To ignore that unpleasant prospect is sheer folly.
