By Franz Schurmann

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Prediction #48 for Tuesday, February 22nd, 2000

Beijing ultimatum to Taiwan will bring Clinton-Congress standoff on China policy to a boil or a bust. Chances are it will be a big bust for the China-bashers

Over the last week China issued two "white papers." A white paper is an official government document, One was on human rights, the other on Taiwan. The Western media hardly mentioned the first and when they did it was with a ho-hum, just another propaganda piece attitude. But the other got much more attention. The Wall Street Journal headlined in a front page article "China threatens war against Taiwan if island resists reunification talks."

A high ranking Beijing official said China's White Paper on Taiwan constituted no change in PRC policy, as quoted in the Hong Kong based Sing Tao Daily. The only thing that has changed, he said, is that we want a decision now from the Taiwan side: unification yes or no. If the decision is yes then we want a timetable.

But something has changed because a month from now Taiwan will hold presidential elections. And whoever wins will not be incumbent Lee Teng-hui who is constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term. Another president who also is constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term is Bill Clinton. On November 7, 2000, a new American president will be elected.

Many things have changed in the complex and complicated China-Taiwan-America triangle. In times of big changes power tends to devolve upwards. In times of war generals command entire armed forces while "maximal leaders," as they say in Spanish, gain autocratic power over entire nations. Lee Teng-hui is a powerful president. But Bill Clinton is a much more powerful one. His power can move Lee but not the other way around.

During much of his second term President Clinton has brought about closer and tighter relations between America and China. A big break in this pattern came last spring when a coalition of Congressional conservatives and liberals went on the offensive against China. The tone of those attacks was similar to President Reagan's characterization of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire." The Soviet empire disintegrated in 1991. The right-left coalition was motivated by a similar aim. They figured that being tough with China could bring about a similar disintegration.

We know that Clinton was destabilized by the attacks. When Prime Minister Zhu Rongji visited America last April he offered generous terms if the American government would support China's entry into the WTO. To widespread surprise Clinton turned him down. Then in May came the mysterious bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade killing three Chinese journalists.

At that time Congressman.Christopher Cox (R,CA) launched his investigation into Chinese espionage. The liberal and conservative media alike gave a lot of supportive coverage to Cox. Yet despite the crashing waves of China-bashing Clinton stuck to his China policy. As 1999 came to a close, relations between America and China once again began to improve.

Now it's been years that relations have been so close as now. For five days, from February 8 through 12, 2000, 7,000 American sailors were enjoying Hong Kong leave. A few days later an American delegation headed by Undersecretary of State Strobe Talbot was in Beijing. High-ranking officials from the Defense Department accompanied him. And, in the Chinese language report, the meeting also was attended by the "resident American ambassador to China," retired Admiral Joseph Prueher who until mid-1999 was the commander in chief of all American armed forces in the Asia-Pacific theater.

Prueher's former boss, Defense Secretary William Cohen, is scheduled to visit China later this year, as is Prueher's successor, Admiral Dennis Blair. Furthermore, as top American brass were in Beijing large American naval contingents were cruising in East Asian waters. In earlier years a similar marshalling of American forces always aroused fears that an armed clash between China and America was in the offing. That was the case, for one of many examples, during the Quemoy crisis of 1958. The last such nerve-rattling confrontation came in March 1996 when President Clinton ordered an aircraft carrier into the Taiwan Straits.

Now, however, when American sailors were roving around Hong Kong and American top brass were in Beijing the House passed the "Taiwan Security Enhancement Act" (TSEA) with a huge vote in favor. The committed China-bashers on both the Democratic and Republican sides voted yes. Today's Wall Street Journal reads "the act stands little chance of passage in the Senate." But the House's China-bashers had done their damage. When, in a turbulent election year, the Congresspersons decided to show their contempt for Clinton's China policy the Chinese government came out with a counter blow, their Taiwan White Paper.

There are plenty of signs, even in the US, that China is angry, defiant and confident. The Chinese ambassador to the US, Li Zhaoxing, has been accusing Senator (R. NC) Jesse Helmes of "ignorance." Ambassadors usually don't engage in such language. To boot, Helms has suffered a bad defeat. Instead of waiting hat in hand for Helms to grant him confirmation of his appointment Ambassador Prueher is now in Beijing playing a key part in the knitting of ever closer relations with what Helms and other ultra-conservatives used to call "Red China."

But there are no "Com-symps" (short for "Communist sympathizers," an expression coined by the far right in the 1950's) among the American military in Beijing. A key fact that explains why they are there and why Clinton's China policy changed so dramatically between his first and second terms is that Strobe Talbot is a Russia expert and Russian speaker.

From a political and military standpoint nothing is out of at least somebody's control in all of East Asia. Even turbulent Indonesia is not out of control. But in several parts of East Asia places that once were dangerously out of control are now very much in control. For example, take Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (the old "French Indochina"). For all their problems all three are under control. That wasn't the case during the Vietnam War. The most intractable country in East Asia long was North Korea. It still was a year ago. But then former first term Clinton Defense Secretary, William Perry, went to Pyongyang. From that visit a working cooperation has arisen between both Koreas, China and America committed to seeking peace, prosperity and, for Korea, some form of national reunification.

Till now it seemed that even the similarly intractable Mainland-Taiwan standoff was gradually coming under control. In Taiwan all three major candidates have been steering clear of anything in the nature of breaking away from China. That would infuriate Beijing. And on China's part there were ever stronger indications that, for all the war talk, armed reunification was becoming an ever more remote possibility.

So why then did the House vote the TSEA? Given the China-bashing inclinations of many of their members ----- and, undoubtedly, their campaign fund supporters ----- they figured they could get away with voting overwhelmingly for a bill that "stands little chance of passage in the Senate." But this time Beijing felt angry, defiant and confident they could hit back. And with American sailors in Hong Kong and American admirals in Beijing they knew what they were doing.

But the White Paper is not what was uppermost in the minds of the high-ranking American and Chinese officials. What was has to do with Strobe Talbot's Russian credentials. To put it into the simplest terms America's entire policy towards the Russian Federation (RF) has fallen apart. Last summer the New York Times magazine published an essay entitled "Who Lost Russia." That essay implied that Harvard played a big part in that loss. But again there are bigger and better reasons than that.

My own view is that the reason for the "loss" is contained in a three-letter word: oil. As anyone knows who has been in various parts of the world our global civilization is more dependent on oil that it ever has been before. In the 70's there was hope the oil dependency could be replaced by alternative fuels. In the 80's that path was not pursued but no other new alternative energy path adopted. But in the 90's a path was discovered when the Soviet Union collapsed. The new Russia was willing and eager to work with the West, seek its help and in return allow it access to the vast oil and natural gas reserves of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The price the impoverished Russians had to pay was to allow Anglo-American corporations to lift oil from Kazakhstan on the China border to Azerbaijan on the Caspian.

That dream finally ended when on December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin handed the crown of Russia to Vladimir Putin. Putin's ambitions and the circumstances of proud Russia's steep fall are making it clear to America that the latter's ambitions in the CIS will never be fulfilled. For America and the West that means a return to dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And even if some sort of peace comes between the Israelis and the Arabs there will be no let-up in turbulence.

America is the only global empire the world now has. It controls the world's information technology. Through its allies like Saudi Arabia it controls world oil. And its military forces are supreme globally. If one thinks of Europe and Asia as one continent, Eurasia, then in western Eurasia control is breaking down while in eastern Eurasia it is building up.

Looking towards East Asia one sees not only stability but stunning economic development. The world's industrial center is now East and Southeast Asia. Along with America and Europe that region is one of the financial troika that rules the world. And along with a rising India East and Southeast Asia are centers of hi-tech industry and innovation.

China is at the center of all of these historical currents. Significantly China once again turned down an offer to join G-7. China's leaders said "thank you but no." Many of those who voted for the TSEA do fear China. Some envy it. And others may have "Yellow Peril" views that were once a deep current in American history. But my sense is that the yes-voters figured they could get away with their brashness. Instead they got the Chinese White Paper.

I think this is going to be a big bust for the China bashers. They are not only going to lose but they are going to be seen as ineffectual, given to temper tantrums. And as their irrelevance is forgotten a more fateful question has to be faced: Is the "loss of Russia" the beginning of turbulence that will spread over the CIS, then splash into the Middle East and finally make its way into Europe.

If this is the case then what American military men were doing in Beijing was some sort of looking into and preparing for the future. What the House did, on the other hand, was the kind of politics that puts politicians at the bottom of lists of preferred and honored occupations.