More challenging than erasing a $477 billion budget deficit (which should keep the 3-percent federal phone tax intact for another hundred years or so) is figuring out where the U.S.-China relationship is headed.
It is a moving target that is as much about dollars and cents as it is about missiles and tanks. Maybe more. Whatever else goes into the equation, there is this: China means big bucks for the U.S. and the rest of the world. Ask Motorola Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc. and others that-amid much pomp and puffery last month-signed $2.3 billion in new deals with China.
The emerging market of 3 billion people, most of whom lack basic telephone service or other creature comforts, offers business opportunities unprecedented in modern times. Billions and billions of dollars in contracts are there for the taking. Contrast that with the malaise that still lingers in telecom and tech sectors, despite some signs of a comeback.
China is all too tempting.
For that reason and the fact that the Bush administration needs global support for the war on terrorism, it is easy to overlook or downplay any negatives in U.S.-China relations.
Indeed, the administration appears reluctant to get into too much of a tiff over China’s currency manipulation or even the U.S. $125 billion trade imbalance with the Asian giant.
A U.S. trade representative report to Congress, harshly critical of China World Trade Organization compliance, was issued late last year without great fanfare. Don’t expect the FBI to corner Chinese officials with subpoenas the way U.S. law enforcement did with Philippine telecom officials in Hawaii recently.
But being an election year and jobs a campaign issue, others are making noise about China.
So then, what do we do with a new Amnesty International report accusing China of stepping up its crackdown on citizens who dare speak their mind on the Internet or download files deemed inappropriate by Beijing? How do we react to AI’s claim that Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Websense and Nortel Networks are partners in crime, providing Chinese authorities the technology to censor and control Internet use? Four of five did not return calls for comment. The fifth said no comment.
AI says students, political dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners, workers, writers, lawyers, civil servants, former police officers, engineers and businessmen are being detained or thrown in the slammer because of Internet activities. Their crime, triggering incarceration as long as a dozen years, is typically “subversion” or “endangering state security.” Wonder what they do with unrepentant spammers and incorrigible hackers?
Political reform trails economic reform in China.
The U.S. approach to China has evolved from strategic ambiguity to strategic partner to strategic competitor. If trade and anti-terrorism priorities feed self-censorship in the face of Chinese efforts to repress political and religious expression, perhaps we will enter a new, tragic era of strategic indifference.
