A deal with the devil
What’s wrong with this picture?
BOTH THE president of still Red China, that Communist monolith, and the president of the United States, a nation that was once the leader of the free world, were all smiles as they exchanged compliments in Beijing last week. It’s understandable why the Chinese dictator was smiling; he was getting everything he wanted, including, while the president of the USA was in town, praise from the man who once said the mainland Chinese were “raping” America through trade. Donald Trump may criticize the Red Chinese during campaign stops in this country, but it’s different when he has to look folks in the eye.
Yes, admitted our nation’s president, Beijing was responsible for the shockingly big trade deficit between the two nations that has resulted from Red China’s erecting barriers to America’s access to its markets and stealing this country’s intellectual property to rev up its own economy.
But what, The Donald worry? He was too busy making excuses for Red China’s behavior to complain about it. “I don’t blame China,” he said all too clearly. “After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?”
Coming away empty-handed from this unilateral exchange in which the Chinese got everything they sought and America was obliging enough to seek little if anything, the American president had nothing but praise for his Communist counterpart’s latest moves to consolidate his iron grip on absolute power. Like any other dazed dupe or awed tourist, he watched a full-dress military parade in Tiananmen Square, once the scene of a bloody massacre, and got a tour of the Forbidden City, capping off his visit by congratulating the Chinese boss of bosses, Comrade President Xi, on his consolidating his power at the Party’s latest Congress. Our president praised what to any halfway objective observer would be just another purge. “You’re a very special man,” Mr. Trump told Comrade Xi.
Communist China’s leader felt no need to respond in kind. Why should he? He just stood there and smiled— like a man with much to smile about. Neither man felt any need to take questions, the lopsided result of their meeting being all too clear. “I told the president that the Pacific is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States,” the comrade-in-chief declared, pushing what he called Co-existence, a common Communist phrase often employed before a Red giant swallows another small country on its expanding periphery. This dance is as old as appeasement.
Some of us have seen this movie before, and here’s where we came in. This dictator is supposed to be different from all other dictators—someone Americans can deal with. Just as Herr Hitler was going to renounce all other territorial demands after Nazi Germany had remilitarized the Rhineland and swallowed up Sudetenland. Just as kindly Uncle Joe, better known as Stalin, was going to lead Our Fighting Russian Ally to join us in assuring the peace of the world. Only in the well-muffled background could one hear the groans of an ancient and too-long oppressed people.
Here’s the moral of this old and oft-repeated story: The more things change, the more they remain the dismal same.
NEVER FEAR, for once outside of China, and giving a speech in Vietnam, the president of the United States found a backbone. Not having to look at Comrade Xi in person, President Trump decided his Vietnam speech would be a good place to bring up mainland China’s many sins against this country:
He complained about “the audacious theft of intellectual property,” “massive subsidizing of industries through colossal state-owned enterprises” and American companies being targeted by “state-affiliated actors for economic gain.” We imagine the ChiComs should have heard that, too. But surely they have a free press that will carry the message back to the country. Or at least diplomats who’ll tell the leaders around President Xi, for the people in that “people’s republic” probably will never hear those words. Too impolitic.
Rex Tillerson, this nation’s secretary of state, had to accompany the president on this trip to explain to reporters what his boss really meant when he spoke or tweeted. Once upon a time, when Nixon went to China (as supposedly only he could), he brought along his secretary of state, too. We’re reminded of the story of Henry Kissinger trying to make small talk with Zhou Enlai, a high official in Chairman Mao’s government: Dr. Kissinger asked what was the Party’s official opinion of the French Revolution these days. Premier Zhou thought for a moment, then said: “It’s too early to say.” Conclusion: The Chinese take a long view on things. American leaders should, too.