No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

49 WHITHER CHINA?

JOSH BOLTEN, the White House chief of staff, had given all of us a little “countdown” clock, ticking away the remaining days of the Bush administration. I put it on the corner of my desk. There was still a lot to do, and I was very aware that we’d soon come to a “crossover point,” when other governments would start to look past us to the next administration. The flip side was that several leaders wanted to “finish” important business, since they believed that “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

I wondered which camp Kim Jong-il would fall into. In the first quarter of 2008, it seemed that he wanted to “finish” the business with the Bush administration. There had been a thaw in 2007 during which the North Koreans carried out their obligations, allowing IAEA and U.S. inspectors on the ground where, as one press member put it, they “crawl[ed] all over the place,” even destroying equipment related to the nuclear program. The improvement in Pyongyang’s compliance coincided with the election of a new, tough-minded president in South Korea. It helped too that U.S.-China relations were on a solid footing. For a moment in the winter of 2008, it looked as though we might just get the North Koreans to make better choices. The North desperately wanted to be removed from the terrorist list, which identified countries engaged in and supporting terrorism. Somehow the North Koreans seemed to believe it signaled acceptance internationally, though they remained heavily sanctioned. But we were holding out until we could get a look at the declaration of their nuclear facilities, sites, and activities promised in the step-by-step plan that Chris Hill and Kim Kye Gwan had worked out the year before. Still, we were making progress and it was nice that the inauguration of South Korea’s new president could take place without a crisis on the Korean peninsula as the backdrop.

I headed the U.S. delegation to the event, enjoying my chance to get to know a distinguished guest accompanying the group, Hines Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ receiver. Hines is half Korean and wore traditional garb, a gesture that was greatly appreciated by our hosts. Sitting on the dais and looking out over the huge crowd, it was easy to forget that South Korea had come to democracy just two decades earlier having been ruled by autocratic leaders such as the staunchly anti-Communist Syngman Rhee since before the Korean War. The conservative businessman turned politician Lee Myung-bak addressed the crowd and then reviewed the troops of the Republic of Korea. It was an incredible sight in a country that had once been a military dictatorship. Then the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” a fitting end to a remarkable celebration of freedom.

I met with the new president later that day. We talked only briefly about North Korea since he was short on time and—not surprisingly—attention on his inaugural day. Yet I was really moved as I listened to his impassioned concern for the people of North Korea. “They are our brothers and sisters,” he said, showing an empathy that was a far cry from the Korean official a few years before who’d despaired at integrating “brain-damaged midgets” should reunification occur. The administration had appointed a special envoy for human rights in North Korea. Jay Lefkowitz, a Washington lawyer with whom I had worked at the White House, had tried to find an entry point with our allies in the region to tackle this difficult problem. Many commentators and some in Congress criticized the State Department as insufficiently active in pursuing the cause of human rights in North Korea. But without a strong partner in the South there was little that we could do. For instance, Seoul under Roh had refused to enhance their abilities to broadcast into North Korea. Now, with a South Korean president with greater interest in the human rights issue across the thirty-eighth parallel, I thought that we might make a new start—even in the waning days of the administration. That night I called the President to talk about my visit to China the next day. “Lee is going to be a great partner for you in the Freedom Agenda in Asia,” I told him. I was just sorry that the two of them wouldn’t have longer to work together.

It was very clear that the Chinese were sorry they wouldn’t have longer to work with George W. Bush too. Our relationship had come a very long way from the downing of our aircraft on Hainan Island in 2001 and tensions over Taiwan arms sales. We’d navigated a lot of turbulence with Beijing over the eight years. The Chinese didn’t appreciate our consistently raising human rights cases and the Tibetan issue, but they tolerated it. Even when the President met repeatedly with the Dalai Lama in the residence of the White House, the howls from Beijing were somewhat muted. The protests increased when the President participated in the presentation of a Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama in 2007. But in relatively short order, the fit of pique subsided. In fact, we set the terms of engagement on these difficult issues early: we vowed to be respectful but determined in challenging China on human rights. And we held fast to the belief that time was not on the side of authoritarianism in a country that was rapidly growing more prosperous.

We repeatedly told the Chinese that we believed that their economic growth was good for the international economy. They listened but probably ignored us when we said that it would be good for there to be a liberalization of Chinese politics too.

Yet I firmly believe that political change will come to China. Labor unrest, ethnic riots, product safety negligence, censorship on the Internet, and disasters that have repeatedly caused massive loss of life due to shoddy construction pose a serious challenge to China’s development. One has to wonder how China’s hierarchal and rigid political system can effectively respond. The country’s internal dynamism is boiling under Beijing’s tight lid, and I hope, in the coming years, the party leadership will let off some steam. Perhaps this is why Premier Wen has now several times raised—albeit cautiously—the need for political reform. I can’t help but think that some of those Communist officials who are planning the 2012 Party Congress recognize the strain prompted by the most rapid social and economic transformation in human history. Some of them must be asking, “How can we liberalize without becoming Gorbachev?”

The U.S. can and must continue to advocate for a democratic China. With a country of China’s size and complexity, the U.S. government’s direct tools for influencing internal development are few. They’re essentially limited to leveraging the power of open markets and helping make sure that the Chinese people are exposed to the world through universities and companies. Other more frontal approaches are likely to be resisted and can even backfire.

THUS, THERE WAS never much of a question as to whether the President would attend the Olympics in Beijing. We all understood that it was China’s coming-out party; any attempt to get something in return would most certainly have been resented and resisted. The President announced early and often that he’d attend the Olympics as a sporting event, taking the issue of quid pro quo off the table. The Chinese came to appreciate the administration’s nuanced policy, knowing that we’d take a stand when we had to—for instance, on the Dalai Lama—but that we’d show respect when we could, as with the Olympics.

And sometimes our interests came together in unexpected ways. Such was the case with Taiwan. From the time of his election, Taiwan’s president, Chen Shui-bian, had been a thorn in our side, not just Beijing’s. The Taiwan Strait issue, as the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan has come to be known, is one of those international problems that requires delicate balancing. It’s important to prevent open conflict, though the issue defies resolution—at least for the time being. The United States is committed to helping Taiwan defend itself in the event of Chinese provocation or attack. But there is no interest in Washington in helping a Taiwan that provokes China. That was the problem with Chen Shui-bian.

Taiwan was where the Kuomintang had fled after the 1949 revolution. The island grew economically and eventually became democratic. China has always held that Taiwan must be reintegrated into the mainland, whereas the Taiwanese have claimed that the mainland is theirs. But as the PRC has grown more powerful, Taiwan has shifted to a position of trying to maintain its autonomy. The United States has supported that ambition but not a declaration of formal independence. Chen constantly walked toward the precipice of declaring independence, which was a serious violation of the principle that neither side should try to change the status quo.

At the end of 2007, Chen announced that he’d hold a national referendum on joining the United Nations in the name of Taiwan. This thinly disguised ploy to get the people of Taiwan to vote for independence sent Beijing into a tizzy. It threatened all kinds of retaliation. We agreed that the referendum was provocative, and I said so publicly.

The Bush administration had been a good friend to Taiwan, securing Congressional support for an arms-sale package and working tirelessly to convince China to allow Taipei’s participation in world bodies such as the World Health Organization. No one was particularly sympathetic, therefore, to Chen’s entreaties to his few remaining friends in Washington. There were a few phone calls from members of Congress but no real support for Chen’s position.

When I arrived in Beijing the day after the Korean president’s inauguration, the foreign minister asked if I’d call the referendum a provocation again, this time in front of the Chinese press. I’d expected this request and had talked it over with the President the night before. The Chinese press was primed to ask the question—and to receive the answer. I avoided using the word “provocation” again, but that night my carefully worded rebuke was played over and over on television. It was played in Taiwan too, where the referendum began to lose support almost immediately. Most people understood that Taipei could not be on the wrong side of the United States.

Thanks to both the Taiwan issue and the President’s decision to attend the Olympics, the Chinese were in a very good mood about U.S.-China relations. They believed too that we were doing all we could to resolve the North Korean issue. “I just hope you can pass on the administration’s policy to the next President,” Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told me during that visit.

“Jiechi,” I said, “you have lived in Washington [as political counselor and ambassador], and you know that’s not how it works.”

“Well,” he said, “we can hope.”

A few months later, I visited Chengdu, China, the site of a devastating earthquake that spring that had caused seventy thousand deaths. The relocation site was very orderly, and the Chinese citizens seemed grateful for their lodgings, which were likely to be their homes, we were told, for up to three years. A twelve-year-old boy walked up to me and said, “You’re that lady from America.” I answered that I was. He smiled and hugged me. I always loved those moments with kids when you could feel what America means to people of all ages. But I also saw something that made me wonder about China’s remarkable development. We had to pass through a village to get to the relocation camp. It was right out of the nineteenth century—just a few miles from the gleaming, modern metropolis of Chengdu. That’s the problem, I thought. They’ve pulled more than 500 million people out of poverty, but they have so many more to go. And inequality is widening. How does a Marxist government handle that?

From that perspective, the rise of China looked a little different—less certain and potentially more chaotic. We’d come to office knowing that managing the U.S.-China relationship would be one of our most important tasks. The international system has not always been good at accommodating rising powers. One of the reasons that we were confident we could was the strong web of alliances that we enjoyed. The United States was an established Pacific power, both militarily and economically. South Korea, Japan, and Australia were strong democratic friends, more than capable of holding their own in the changing region.

But Japan was emerging as a weakening link in that chain. I’ve mentioned Prime Minister Koizumi’s determination to undertake long-delayed, much-needed bureaucratic and economic reforms. When he left office, Japan fell back into consensus politics again, with essentially interchangeable prime ministers who never seemed to move the country forward. It was increasingly depressing to go to Japan, which seemed not only stagnant and aging but hamstrung by old animosities with its neighbors. And I was concerned too about my personal chemistry with the Japanese, who believed I was too interested in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue and unwilling to hold the line on the abductions. It began to feel as if the Japanese wanted the Six-Party Talks to fail lest they lose their leverage with us to help them with the admittedly tragic abduction issue.

For the remainder of the term, I’d fight to avoid linkage between the two issues. We could only say that we’d press the North Koreans to resolve the questions about the kidnapped Japanese citizens but if we could constrain—even end—Pyongyang’s nuclear program, we needed to do that. Maintaining that position was very difficult. Tom Schieffer, the President’s good friend and former co-owner of the Texas Rangers, was ambassador to Japan (having already served as ambassador to Australia). Tom was a great guy but sometimes a little too insistent in making Tokyo’s case. After one incident in which Tom called the President—not me—about Japan’s complaints, we had a discussion about the appropriate chain of command. He hadn’t meant to cross the line, and we never had difficulties again. But I know it was hard on Tom because the Japanese were hypersensitive and insecure. Therein lay the problem: we needed a confident Japan as a partner in a changing Asia, and with the end of Junichiro Koizumi’s term in office in 2006, those days had seemed to disappear.