Clinton’s goal in China

“We are trying to get to a point where we can work more closely with them (the Chinese) and where they cooperate more closely with us. So we’re trying to build the same kind of world in the future and not a very different kind of world. And I hope we’ll get there. “
–President Clinton, April 30, 1998

It’s time to take a step back and review President Clinton’s China trip and his policies toward the largest totalitarian country in the history of the world.

What are his intentions? What are his goals? Where is this hand-holding with and coddling of brutal dictators leading? What does Bill Clinton mean when he says in a Washington press conference that “we’re trying to build the same kind of world in the future”? Exactly what kind of world does he have in mind? Do the American people have anything to say about this? Or, are we supposed to trust Clinton and Jiang Zemin to watch out for our best interests?

I for one trust Clinton to protect my interests and my freedom about as much as I trust Jiang. For one thing, Clinton is totally compromised as a leader when it comes to China. The Chinese leadership has the ability to bring the Clinton administration down. They bought and paid for that ability the day the Democratic National Committee accepted money from Chinese military and intelligence operatives — if not earlier.

The fact that the Riady family was the single largest contributor to Bill Clinton’s 1992 race for the presidency indicates that payoff occurred long ago — during a campaign which has not been scrutinized by any official investigators. The Riadys have been described in congressional hearings as active intelligence operatives of the Chinese government.

So, perhaps Clinton’s interests and Jiang’s interests coincide. But do America’s and China’s? Hardly. China represents the biggest foreign threat to America’s national security for the foreseeable future. It is modernizing its war machine, threatening its neighbors and targeting U.S. cities with nuclear weapons. Russia, too, is a threat. But it is important to remember that Moscow and Beijing have signed an agreement to cooperate in every way possible — militarily, in intelligence-gathering, in arms deals — to reduce the global power of the United States.

There have always been fools in the West who believe the way to reduce global threats is move toward world unity — world government. Bill Clinton has hinted at this as a goal in the past. Perhaps that’s what he meant in his inarticulate, babbling and typically feel-good response to Sarah McClendon at that press conference.

But what would such a world look like? Would China become a little more like the United States and the United States become a little more like China? Would we meet at the half-way point and split the difference? Are Americans prepared to compromise all of their unalienable rights for the promise of peace? Is stability worth trading all of our precious freedoms?

Clinton’s trip to China was little more than a dangerous charade. A charade because it accomplished nothing. The president’s television address to the Chinese people was well-managed and orchestrated by the authorities in Beijing. Most of the “sensitive” parts of the speech were virtually inaudible, according to reports on the ground. The reports of the address in the official Xinhua news agency, which reaches 85 percent of Chinese homes, were heavily sanitized.

But then again, so were the reports back here in the United States. And that’s why the trip was dangerous. Our media are also controlled in their own way. There are few outlets raising the kinds of questions raised in this column. The loyal opposition in Congress was nearly mute on these important issues as well.

Maybe Clinton is right. Maybe he’s a lot closer to reaching his goal of “merger” with the totalitarians than we all think. Unfortunately there is no indication that China is changing or reforming. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest the United States is becoming more repressive, less open, more centrally controlled.

When top White House adviser Paul Begala gloats about one-man rule in the United States through the unconstitutional power of executive orders (“Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.”), you have to ask yourself, if there is any qualitative difference between the despotic worldviews of Clinton and Jiang.