EDITORIAL & OPINION — Engagement better than estrangement — China watch

A recent cover of The Economist says it all. A gigantic Uncle Sam cowering and shivering on a footstool, while a small panda bear holding a missile wearily looks up at him as if to say, “yeah right.”

Judging by his cynical and defiant expression, the Panda isn’t fooled. He knows full well that Uncle Sam is putting on a show at the behest of a handful of Republican Party hawks who hope to beef up the defence budget by replacing the red scare with the yellow peril.

But the panda isn’t innocent either. He was allegedly caught trying to steal American weapons technology, an incident portrayed as the tip of a potentially huge iceberg of espionage.

China did what all governments do when accused of spying on America: deny, deny, deny. Although no charges have yet been laid against the suspected rogue scientist in the case that triggered the accusations, no one believes the Chinese government’s denials either.

Everyone in the political loop knows that the Chinese and the Americans have been spying on each other for decades. As one American politician pointed out, the Chinese were simply doing their jobs, trying to get a peek at the best military technology in the world, technology far superior to their own.

It was America that failed to do its job, which, in this case, meant failing to keep its secrets safe. America also failed to act quickly and get to the bottom of the alleged case of illegal technology transfer that began during the Ronald Reagan era.

Those failures are potentially serious and need to be investigated and rectified. But to turn China into a new Cold War enemy takes the exercise too far. After all, politics may have something to do with the increase in anti-China rhetoric. An election is looming, and there is speculation that Chinese money helped finance Democratic Party campaign coffers.

In an election year, defending China or the policy of constructive engagement isn’t popular. The human rights issue comes up time and time again. And there is growing resentment over the difficulty American businesses have encountered trying to penetrate China’s vast consumer market. Last year, the United States had a US$56-billion trade deficit with China, and it’s expected to be higher this year.

Henry Kissinger, who with former U.S. president Richard Nixon first opened the door to China, has been one of the few to criticize the latest round of American sabre-rattling. He’s also one of the brave. Until he spoke out, hardliners found little opposition to their anti-China message. America doesn’t have a left with muscle anymore, not since Bill Clinton steered the Democratic Party to the right, a strategically sound political move given his country’s aging population. But as Kissinger aptly pointed out, the right isn’t always right either.

China is undergoing enormous change as it shifts from rigid communism to “a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.” Positive influences are needed now, not negative ones. Turning China into a bogeyman only fuels nationalistic sentiment, which in turn inhibits reforms and the flow of new ideas. Engagement is better than estrangement, particularly when we’re talking about one-fifth the world’s population.

It is ironic that Russia, yesterday’s bogeyman, is getting a thumb’s-up for being more socially progressive, more democratic, than China. Yet it’s economy is in chaos; its reforms, more illusory than real. Poverty, crime, alcoholism and social ills are rampant.

In China, the economy is booming, helped in part by the financial muscle of Hong Kong. But the mainland Chinese are no slouches either. They are hardworkers and prodigious savers, which has allowed them to invest in the new market economy and, at the same time, cushion their families from the effects of the economic transition and government downsizing.

It may not be politically correct to say so, but there is something to be said for placing economic reforms ahead of political ones. Let the horse pull the cart, not the other way around. After all, the world is full of failed utopias.

When democracy comes to China — as it inevitably will — it will at least have the institutions to make it work, and the social stability to make it mean something.