Page 3 of 5 CHINA AND APPEASEMENT,
PART 1 Beyond Munich: Geostrategy
and betrayal By Henry C K Liu
document: the Shanghai Communique of 1972, amended by the Normalization
Communique of 1978 and the August 17, 1982, Communique.
The recognition of and respect for bilateral differences between China and the
US was enshrined in the Shanghai Communique of
1972, which states:
There are essential differences between China and
the United States in their social systems and foreign policies. However, the
two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should
conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of all states, non-aggression against other states,
non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual
benefit, and peaceful co-existence. International disputes should be settled on
this basis, without resorting to the use or threat of force. The United States
and the People's Republic of China [PRC] are prepared to apply these principles
to their mutual relations.
US policy on Taiwan has consistently
and unceasingly violated the principles of respect for the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of China, and has interfered in its internal affairs.
The Cold War basis of US-China rapprochement
For the United States, rapprochement toward China was a geopolitical expediency
in its containment of Soviet expansion in a Cold War context.
Few in US policy circles in 1972 anticipated the dissolution of the USSR.
Advances in US-China relations prior to the end of the Cold War were directly
related to progress in US-Soviet detente. Yet progress in detente also
increased the incentive and prospect of Soviet preemptive military action
against China. This prospect in turn was deterred by US warnings to the USSR
about determined US response against such attacks. The prospect of imminent
Sino-Soviet military confrontation enabled fundamental ideological differences
between the US and China to be put aside temporarily in an overriding
geopolitical context in which a strong China independent of Soviet influence
was considered to be in the US national interest.
The realpolitik in US national security adviser (and later, concurrently,
secretary of state) Henry Kissinger's geopolitical concept of international
order required a strong and independent China to prevent Soviet expansionism
from isolating the US into an unwitting garrison state - "Fortress America" -
as the US had done twice in the 20th century that resulted in two world wars.
President Richard Nixon was convinced that after the Cultural Revolution
(1966-76), China was no longer an ideological threat to the US and that the
need to isolate it from international forums in fear of its being an enticing
model of world revolution would be overshadowed by the need for
balance-of-power geopolitics. The need of Western capitalism for a new huge
Chinese market was not the central objective.
US-China rapprochement and the US warnings against a preemptive Soviet attack
on China were also viewed as necessary to relieve other countries in Asia from
concerns about US-Soviet detente turning into a bilateral superpower global
condominium, with a US-Soviet cabal against China as a centerpiece.
Thus the warming of US-China relations in the last phase of the Cold War had
been primarily externally motivated, as the current warming of US-China
relations is externally motivated by the US "war on terrorism".
Historically, the Open Door Policy of John Hay (US secretary of state 1879-81),
designed against European powers partitioning China into spheres of influence,
remained tacitly fundamental in US policy toward China with regard to Soviet
intentions in the late 20th century. China was part of the continuation of the
Great Game rivalry between Russia and the West that dated from before World War
I. It was in US national interest to neutralize any prospect of China being
dominated by a European power, such as the USSR. In short, US policy toward
China had merely been a bargaining chip in the United States' geopolitical
grand design in the Cold War.
It is clear that China will re-emerge as US enemy No 1 as soon as the "war on
terrorism" winds down, as long as Russia fails to regain its superpower status.
Declassified US documents reveal that Nixon secretly made specific concessions
to Chinese leader Mao Zedong on the question of Taiwan beyond the text of the
Shanghai Communique of February 28, 1972. Nixon pledged to "actively work
toward" and complete "full normalization" of US-PRC diplomatic relations by
1976. He also promised not to support any Taiwanese military action against the
mainland or any Taiwanese independence movement and to prevent Japan or any
other third country from moving in on Taiwan as US presence was reduced.
Nixon failed to deliver on his geopolitical concessions to Mao when he was
forced to resign to avoid impeachment over the Watergate scandal, which was not
unrelated to domestic opposition to his rapprochement to China.
According to a top-secret US memo, now declassified, of a conversation held
with Mao on February 18, 1973, in Zhongnanhai, government headquarters in
Beijing, Kissinger said to to the Chinese leader: "Our interest in trade with
China is not commercial. It is to establish a relationship that is necessary
for the political relations we both have." Mao accepted this candid confession
as accurate. Thus trade from the beginning of US-China rapprochement was viewed
as a lubricant of geopolitical objectives.
After the end of the Cold War, the causal relationship has been reversed.
Geopolitics is now viewed as a foundation for enhancing free-trade objectives
in a new neo-liberal globalized regime dominated by the United States. This is
what Bush meant when he asserted in a May 7, 2001, speech, "Open trade is not
just an economic opportunity, it is a moral imperative ... And when we promote
open trade, we are promoting political freedom."
Thus it is not surprising that with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in
1991, US-China relations, devoid of its geopolitical underpin, floundered
aimlessly until the emergence of neo-liberal globalization. The relationship
that began in 1972 out of a common strategic concern with Soviet expansionism
based on geopolitical conditions was altered fundamentally with the dissolution
of the USSR.
US transformational foreign policy
US policy on China has since taken on the objective of transformational foreign
policy, aiming to transform socialist China by using capitalist Taiwan as a
model.
The US envisages the eventual return of Taiwan to China as a peaceful way of
replacing socialism with capitalism on the Chinese mainland, and of
transforming the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by fragmenting it into
several European-style social-democrat parties. All the talk about the need to
strengthen the rule of law through the establishment of an independent
judiciary, carrying out monetary reform through a politically independent
central bank and the need for an independent military implies independence from
party control. It is all part of the US vision of transformation.
Ironically, such devious talk of reform to enhance Chinese economic and
political development enjoys substantial support from many US-trained returned
Chinese neo-liberals, even inside the Central Party School of the CCP.
US violations of the Shanghai Communique
The key bases of normal relationship between the US and China as stipulated in
the Shanghai Communique, namely the principles of respect for the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of all states, and non-interference in the internal
affairs of other states, have not been observed by the United States over the
issue of Taiwan.
Far from leading to peace, Chinese appeasement on the Taiwan issue will
inevitably lead to war, as no government in China can survive politically the
protracted separation of Taiwan that solidifies into a perpetual status quo
from foreign interference. And a government that tolerates the endless
extension of the status quo on Taiwan does so at its own peril.
For a detailed account of such US violations of Chinese sovereignty and
bilateral agreements, see my Asia Times Online 10-part series
US-China: The Quest for Peace.
Trade doves versus security hawks
The confrontation in the US-China-Taiwan triangular arena has become a conflict
between the trade doves and the security hawks on all three sides.
In reality, no amount of US arms sales to Taiwan, quantitative or qualitative,
can enhance the island's long-term security. Trade has never prevented war. The
US traded with Japan and Germany up to the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii. What makes China think twice about recovering Taiwan by force
is the cost-benefit analysis of the prospect of a direct military conflict with
the United States over Taiwan.
If US strategy in Asia requires the perpetuation of the status quo on Taiwan,
then a Chinese military offensive to achieve the reincorporation of Taiwan
would simply be a matter of forsworn conclusion.
Neo-liberal distortion of 'one country, two systems'
The "one country, two systems" (OCTS) policy, originally framed by the Chinese
leadership during the final phase of the Cold War for the terms of
reincorporation of Taiwan, has since become a centerpiece of Chinese
appeasement.
OCTS was conveniently applied to Hong Kong in 1997 as a formula for its return
to China from British colonial rule. For Hong Kong, OCTS has a time limit of 50
years. For Taiwan, OCTS has no time limit. The two systems in OCTS refer to the
socialist and capitalist systems in a strictly economic sense, although
allowances are tolerated in Hong Kong for a neo-liberal socio-political-legal
infrastructure deemed necessary for viable functioning of a market economy.
OCTS assumes a non-adversary relationship between the two economic systems
separated by geography. It is a precarious assumption. Under OCTS, Hong Kong is
not expected to be an anti-China political base nor is market capitalism
expected to work for the demise of socialism on the mainland. Neither of these
expectations has been fulfilled flawlessly in the decade since Hong Kong was
returned to China in 1997.
One aspect of the OCTS policy that has been conveniently under-emphasized by
neo-liberals is that the "two systems" arrangement implies that socialism will
remain the operative system on the mainland, and that Chinese policies of
reform and open-to-the-outside do not include anti-socialist objectives. Many
neo-liberal supporters of OCTS are in fact quietly and openly
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