FT|Gaffes aside, the upside is US-China engagement

Gaffes aside, the upside is US-China engagement
By Richard McGregor in Washington
Published: April 21 2006 22:30 | Last updated: April 21 2006 22:30

Whenthe Bush administration was planning Hu Jintao’s trip to Washingtonlast year, it floated the idea of inviting the Chinese president tomeet George Bush at his Crawford ranch. The invitation had a twofoldpurpose. It conferred a degree of prestige on the visitor for starters.After all, few foreign leaders are invited to the Texas ranch.

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Moreimportantly, the informal setting and an overnight stay would allowGeorge Bush to engage Mr Hu in a relaxed setting and free of the timepressures that bedevil White House encounters.
TheChinese, however, demanded the protocol of a formal White House welcomemeeting, and stuck to that position when the visit had to berescheduled to this week because of Hurricane Katrina.
The summit that followed on Thursdayin many respects played out to the very script that the administrationhad tried to avoid when it suggested the Crawford retreat.
Thetwo leaders had relatively little time together, with meetings lastingabout 90 minutes squeezed in between the formal welcome on the WhiteHouse lawn and a lunch with invited guests. And for 90 minutes, readabout half that time, as the two men talked through interpreters.
Insuch a formal, time-constrained environment, Mr Hu, as feared, stuckresolutely to a predictable script, promising politely on contentiousissues ranging from currency reform to Iran to do exactly what Chinahas already said it will do.
Broadly, this amounts toagreement on objectives - ensuring that Iran does not get nuclearweapons and restructuring the economy to reduce its bias towardsexports and investment – but disagreement on how they are to beachieved.
Such differences are significant, because thetiming of the implementation of such polices may ensure the objectivesare not met, or force a new set of negotiations as fresh problemsdevelop and deadlines pass.
Even worse for Washington, theprotocol part of the trip was marred by a number of extraordinarygaffes that unravelled months of meticulous planning of the ceremonydemanded by the face-conscious Chinese.
Mr Hu was interrupted by a screaming Falun Gong protester witha journalist’s accreditation; and the Chinese anthem was introduced asthat of the “Republic of China”, the formal name of arch-rival Taiwan,over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
The tight talks leftlittle time for the leaders to discuss issues in depth, or for Mr Hu toimprovise. But this may have been just as the Chinese wanted it.
TheChinese political system does not allow leaders of Mr Hu’s ilk, wholack the revolutionary prestige of forerunners like Mao Zedong and DengXiaoping, much leeway to fiddle with policy on the run.
Andin any case, China is in no mood to offer concessions on foreign policyissues like Iran and Sudan, where they have important strategic energyinterests.
After speaking at Yale university on Friday, MrHu left immediately for Saudi Arabia, and was then scheduled to go to anumber of Africa countries. They key to the post-US schedule wassecuring oil.
A more depressing interpretation of the tripfrom a US perspective is that it very much embodies the kind of leaderthat Mr Hu is – cautious, conservative (in the Chinese sense of theword) and also weak.
Mr Hu’s weakness, or caution, isevident in raging domestic debates in China on the pace of marketreform, during which he has provided no firm indication of his views,leaving policymakers to flounder.
Whether by design ornot, the time spent by Mr Hu with Mr Bush was dwarfed by the time thathe spent with corporate leaders and other “friends of China”.
In Seattle, Mr Hu toured the campus of Microsoft,the software giant, and dined at the home of Bill Gates, its chairman,and sat next to him again the next day at a lunch near the Boeingfactory.
Other friends of China were conspicuously courted– Henry Kissinger, a key figure in engineering the US-Chinarapprochement in the early seventies, attended two meals with Mr Hu inSeattle, including at the Gates house, and introduced him in hischaracteristically gravel-voiced tones at another dinner on Thursday.
Inall of these encounters, as far as one can tell, his hosts and guestsheaped praise on Mr Hu and China’s achievements, leaving theadministration alone to carry the burden of critical engagement.
MrGates praised China’s record on the protection of intellectual propertyrights, citing a number of recent policy changes, even though Microsofthas not been able to build a viable business there because of rampantpiracy.
On the issue of Internet censorship, Mr Gatesdelivered a statement so cryptic – about “promoting exchanges and ideaswhile respecting legitimate government considerations - it could havebeen written by the Chinese themselves.
Mr Hu’s courtshipof US business is not just crass wedge politics, attempting to useAmerican corporates to stay the hand of the administration inWashington on fractious policy issues. US investment, technology andmanagement expertise, not to say the US market itself, is important forthe communist party to modernise the economy and by extension tosustain leaders like Mr Hu in power.


Hu Jintao in the US



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Butthere is little doubt too that the Chinese have always seen the USbusiness community as an important political constituency that can beleveraged to its advantage in Washington.
Despite theclinical nature of Mr Hu’s contacts with Mr Bush, the most positiveside of the visit is the depth of engagement between the US and Chinaand the determination of both sides to make it work.
A USnewspaper commentary on Friday remarked how US presidents from RichardNixon onwards had failed to bend China to their will. In a similarfashion, the paper said, Mr Bush had failed as well.
Butthe truth is that with the help of pressure and support fromWashington, China has been transformed in nearly three decades ofmarket reforms in way that Mr Nixon could not have imagined, andlargely to the benefit of the US. It just didn’t look that way in theWhite House on Thursday.
In depth: China
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