Washington, March 6 (CNA) Since the Clinton administration is helpless to prevent cross-strait military conflict because of its engagement policy, it will fall to Congress to punish Beijing for its latest threat against Taiwan, beginning with the passage of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act and denying Communist China permanent normal trade relations status, according to a conservative American journal.
The Weekly Standard wrote in an editorial in its latest issue that ever since the Clinton administration begun pursuing its policy of engaging China in 1994, Beijing has cracked down on its democracy activists and other alleged "subversives" more savagely than at any time since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
The weekly pointed out that what makes engagement positively dangerous is the policy's persistent inability to recognize its own complicity in the mainland Chinese thuggery. The PRC is not just a despot domestically, its military threat to Asian democracies allied with the United States is also alarming, with Taiwan being the most recent and obvious example.
"China threatens Taiwan not in response to some international slight or challenge, but simply because it feels it needs to. It cannot cotton one of its `provinces' existing and flourishing as a democracy, which altogether explodes the notion that China and freedom are incompatible," noted the editorial.
Besides, just as an insecure Communist regime must constantly battle imagined domestic instability, so it must constantly foment tension with equally imaginary regional and global enemies to legitimize its hold on power. "Sino-US relations are periodically roiled because China wants them to be roiled. And for no other reason," added the editorial.
The magazine said the Clinton administration, locked in the circular logic of engagement theory, does not see the game for what it is. To President Clinton and his advisers, the Taiwan white paper is cause to placate Beijing anew, to make nice, to talk the problem away, and do nothing else. Then, things might temporarily return to "normal."
But at some point in the not-too-distant future, China, requiring another "national sovereignty" emergency to justify its rule, will certainly do it all again. Next time the "shock" will be more severe. Having met so little previous resistance, Beijing will be forced to up the ante in order to achieve the same effect.
"If this cycle continues uninterrupted, Washington may one day wake up to a war in Asia which our undeniable security interests and commitment to democracy will oblige us to join. That shouldn't and need not happen," noted the editorial.
"But the Clinton administration is helpless to prevent it -- by design. So it will fall to Congress to impose long-overdue, meaningful penalties on China for this latest in a long series of outrages. Passage of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act and rejection of Beijing's bid for permanent normal trade relations would be a good place to start," concluded The Weekly Standard. (By Nelson Chung)
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