November 4, 1997

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: GARY SCHMITT

SUBJECT: U.S.-China Policy

This Wednesday, the House of Representatives will debate nine legislative proposals concerned with U.S.-China relations. These bills were developed by the House Republican Policy Committee (chaired by California Rep. Christopher Cox) and the relevant standing committees. Passage of these measures would be an important step toward correcting the Clinton Administration’s all-too-accommodating policy toward China.

China is, as we all know, a rising power in a critical region of the world. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, China has made no secret of its long-term strategic goal of creating in East Asia a new security order which would no longer rest on America military and economic power. China’s leaders want their country to become the region’s next great power. Whether we admit to it or not, there is a competition between the U.S. and China over whether the current international system which favors America and its allies in the region will be maintained, or whether it will be replaced by one more favorable to the present Chinese regime. Recognizing that this competition exists hardly means, as the president suggests, that his policy’s critics long “to create a new cold war.” The competition is a strategic fact and the U.S. should address it directly and firmly; ignoring it will only generate more dangerous problems in the future. As history demonstrates, appeasing the ambitions of a rising power rarely results in a diminution of those ambitions.

China, the administration and its supporters like to point out, is too big and potentially powerful a country to ignore. But, if that is true, then it is incumbent on Washington to develop policies that take China’s power seriously -- containing it where necessary and rewarding China when it employs its power in accord with international norms, and not before. This set of legislative measures provides Congress with an excellent opportunity to deliberate about what a serious policy toward China would entail.