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US policy on China has proved a singular failure in terms of promoting human rights and moderating communist China’s odious action in Tibet or East Turkestan. Most influentially engineered by Henry Kissinger, and others with vested and invested interests in China, and affirmed by President Richard Nixon, successive US Administrations have followed a line which has vacillated between so-called constructive engagement (a barely disguised form of appeasement in which a never realized promise of improvement in freedoms and rights is the reward for trade with China) and hand-wringing platitudes or cautious condemnation of major incidents of human rights abuses or suppression. Neither strategy, if it may be reasonably described as such, has had any meaningful impact upon the grim excesses of Chinese rule in Tibet or East Turkestan, the only major beneficiaries has been the bankers and corporations, who long ago shredded any ethical reservations about trading with China’s blood-soaked regime. As a policy it has proved both inconsistent and morally toothless in the context of human rights, and at times hypocritical, as evidenced by comparing the comments on Tibet made by President Obama in Beijing November 17, 2009, and his rhetoric at West Point on December 1 2009. See here: http://tibettruth.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/prezbs.gif
The United States has limited its actions on such issues to verbal huffing and puffing, this somewhat impotent position emerged from the murky political waters the Clinton Administration found itself in, when it was forced by Beijing’s slick manoeuvering to disengage human rights concerns from granting China Most Favoured Nation status. This hugely influential concession was followed by the withdrawal of American opposition to China’s membership of the Word Trade Organization (WTO)). That controversial membership was eventually confirmed November 10, 2001 as George W Bush settled into a Whitehouse paralysed by the tragic events in New York just two months earlier. This development effectively removed the option of economic leverage as a means of influencing or moderating China, as the United States could no longer consider trade restrictions as a response to threats toward Taiwan, human rights violations in Tibet or religious persecution.
Bankrolling The American Economy
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Since that time China’s global economic influence has increased to the point of dominance, in 2010 China sold over $334 billion worth of goods to American consumers and business (more than the combined annual revenue of Microsoft, Apple, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs). while American businesses sold only $82 billion in goods to communist China. Meanwhile it continues to hold huge amounts of US Federal bonds, Chinese US Treasury bond holdings were $839.7 billion in June 2010. Such staggering statistics, and the unstable economic symmetry between the US and China, leave little room for considerations of human rights or the plight of Tibet.
The task of overseeing economic relations with Beijing has been given to a Mr.Timothy Geithner, another China hand, who formerly majored in Asian studies, learned Mandarin, and had spent a number of years at Kissinger Associates, working with Brent Scowcroft (Scowcroft along with Lawrence Eagleburger had been dispatched in 1989 by Bush Senior to Beijing just twenty fours after the massacre at Tiananmen, to reportedly assure the communist regime that despite its decision to suspend high level contacts with China, and the US Administration’s condemnation, it was to be business as usual)
Timothy Geithner With Wen Jiabao 2009
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Geithner also assisted Henry Kissinger with chapters on China and Japan for one of his books. Not that the architect of US rapprochement with Beijing needs many lessons on China, it was his hands that steered Nixon to normalise relations with Beijing in 1972, which formed the foundation of US policy on China. Significantly on the issues presented to the communist leadership for discussion between the two sides, neither human rights issues or Tibet feature, as revealed in this fascinating Kissinger-Memorandum
Since that momentous meeting a veritable pro-China industry emerged, championed by a well-funded, vociferous and influential China lobby. Kissenger is a unique, and prominent and figure with the ‘friends of china movement‘, advocating accommodation and realism as requirements for relations with Beijing, while seemingly unable to represent any condemnation or opposition to the more troubling aspects of China. Speaking days after the bloody slaughter at Tiananmen Square, as the US Congress was considering sanctions, he reportedly informed ABC television’s Peter Jennings “I wouldn’t do sanctions” (Wall Street Journal September 12, 1989). Kissinger’s China sympathies extended beyond that controversial remark:
“No government in the world would have tolerated the main square of its capital occupied for eight weeks by tens of thousands of demonstrators” (Los Angeles Times July 30, 1989)
Kissinger With Lawrence Eagleburger 1986
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As has been noted elsewhere, Geithner’s mentor, tends to express excuses for China, while his famed analytical thinking omits discussion or critique of human rights concerns. Nor is it articulated in any of his writings, or that of his fellow China lobbyists, to what degree (if any) those who promote positive and normalized US relations with China benefit financially from such stealthy advocation. Clearly Kissinger Associates would seem to represent a number of major US businesses wishing to trade with China, all of whom no doubt would be willing to reward him and his colleagues for having access to the higher levels of Chinese government? Similarly both Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, one time executives with Kissinger’s project, would also be expected to receive considerable benefits, a fact previously reported by the New York Times.
Kissinger Next To Fellow China Hand Scowcroft (On Kissinger's Immediate Left) 2007
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The politics of appeasing China though uncritical accommodation has dominated US relations with the Chinese regime, and has been actively promoted by a number of former US Government figures, who it would seem are those most likely to profit from such a position. Through advising companies such individuals can generate considerable rewards, as they have what is known in Chinese as Guan xi (connections) and are able to facilitate contact between corporate executives and the corrupt and privileged elite within the Chinese government. Such self-serving consultancy has become an powerfully influential establishment, whose cancerous tentacles have been extended across the political scene in Washington, and within the board rooms of most major American business. Apart from Kissinger Associates, the controversial diplomat also set up, in the same year of Tiananmen Square massacre, China Ventures, and two years later established the China-America Society, which had a number of former US Presidents upon its committee. These bodies had, we are informed, amongst its clients: American Express, American International Group, Chase Manhattan Bank, Atlantic Richfield, HJ Heinz, SG Warburg, Midland Bank and Coca Cola.
Other former political heavyweights reportedly associated with Kissinger Associates included, Robert Mc Farlane, Cyrus Vance, Zbigniew Brzezinski, William Rogers and Alexander Haig. It was Haig, during the late 1980s and into the 1990s, who argued against condemning China’s record on human rights in favour of greater cooperation. A position some would speculate may have been shaped by financial gains received by Haig as a consequence of his pro-China lobbying (he received a payment of £600, 000 from International Signal and Control Group as part of assistance provided in selling weapons fuses to China. (Wall Street Journal January 23, 1990).
Kissinger Alongside Alexander Haig 2007
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As so tellingly noted by Premier Hu Jintao:
“As old friends of the Chinese people, you played an important role in establishing China-U.S. diplomatic ties and witnessed that historic decision. For a long time, whether in office or retired, you have made unremitting efforts in building the friendship between the two nations and developing the relationship. I highly appreciate those efforts.” (Hu Jintao’s address January 12, 2009 to Delegation of Former US Government Officials)
The degree to which America’s policy towards China has been influenced and determined by such appeasing voices is alarming, setting the United States upon a course that abandoned valued principles of democratic freedom and universal human rights. Effectively strangling its ability to moderate, censor or oppose the more disturbing aspects of communist China. An indication of the success of the pro-China lobby was reflected in the words of a Senate aide, who remarked that:
“We cannot have a meaningful debate about China policy because almost the entire establishment has, in the final analysis, an interest in the continuation of the status quo”
Other dominant voices supporting commerce and collaboration with China, which operate so effectively from their K Street Washington power-base, include the Emergency Committee for US Trade, US Chamber of Commerce and the US China Business Council. The latter is formed from an impressive number of major American enterprises, for details see here: http://www.uschina.org/member_companies.html
Architects of America's China Lobby-Kissinger And Scowcroft 2008
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The charmingly named China Normalization Initiative is another lobbying body, that exerted a profound and decisive influence over US China policy, formed by a number of Chief Executive Officers from major corporations. Companies reportedly active within this ‘coalition in support of China’ include Motorola, Boeing, American International Group, Caterpillar, and Allied Signal . Often such corporations express statements which bear a remarkable similarity to official Chinese economic policy and we can only wonder to what extent such pro-China values are authored as result of the various financial and political arrangements enabled by organizations such as Kissinger Associates et al. What is clear is that the pernicious campaign to ensure commerce with China dominates, marginalises and silences human rights considerations is a key determinant in all areas US policy on China. Some would go further and caution that America’s policy is actually being authored by those very interests, supported, demanded and approved by a US Treasury under the leadership of Timothy Geithner, a former Kissinger acolyte and yet another friend of China.
Geithner Meets America's Banker
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We should also add to that coalition of appeasement, major media organizations who have links, financial and otherwise, with various corporations and have engaged in a willing collaboration with the Chinese regime, most notably attending a media conference in Beijing which avoided any political or human rights issues including censorship, a major feature of life inside China. See: http://tibettruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/media-moguls-party-in-beijing/
Zbigniew Brzezinski Beijing 2009
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An influential role in promoting the ‘appeasement at any cost model’ is also played by academic institutions such as the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a division of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C. Coincidently the former university of Timothy Geithner, and at which Kissinger Associate’s, Zbigniew Brzezinski is professor of foreign policy. Dedicated to the study of international affairs, economics, diplomacy, and policy research and education it is distinguished for having an international campus in Nanjing China The Hopkins-Nanjing Center Co-Founder and former Hopkins President, Steven Muller considered China to be “the country of the future” .
Kissinger At Hopkins Nanjing University 2007
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Its mission objectives, which would no doubt receive the approval of Kissinger and his associates, are:
“To develop and train professionals to provide leadership in managing successful bilateral and multilateral relationships involving China and the West in an increasingly complex international environment.”
The cynical collective which advances China’s cause at the expense of human rights and democratic principles and those who maintain a shameful silence to preserve and enhance career and research opportunities within China, present a legitimate target for anyone actively championing justice, freedom and independence for Tibet and East Turkestan, and wishing to challenge the censorship and distortions which this coalition specialises in exercising in respect to communist China. It may be politically and economically powerful, yet the individuals and organizations which make up its ad hoc membership remain accountable to the court of public opinion. Their consistent distortions concealment, evasions and callous indifference to the plight of the oppressed within communist China and occupied territories, such as Tibet and East Turkestan, demand rigorous and concerted opposition. While their actions should be exposed and challenged by all those who value basic human rights and political freedom.
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