April
16, 2001
REALITY
CHECK: An
Open Letter to China's President
by David M. Lampton
Dear President Jiang:
I had hoped to convey the following thoughts to your officials last week, but those plans were derailed by the cancellation of a congressional delegation that I was to accompany to China. I write this letter to raise three important issues as both Washington and Beijing enter the very important meeting in Beijing to sort out what happened near Hainan Province and to prevent such occurrences in the future. We are at a crossroads. You must not let two self-interested bureaucracies -- the propaganda apparatus and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-- distort the situation and set our two nations on a needless course of conflict.
The propaganda apparatus is misleading you and the Chinese people about the new administration’s policy. President Bush’s April 12 Rose Garden speech in which he welcomed home the American crew from its detention in China was a model of restraint. Both the Chinese propaganda apparatus and some in the American media have been in overdrive describing his remarks as taking a hard line reflecting pent up American frustration. On the contrary, the president used phrases as "the kind of relationship we have both said we wish to have"; "common interests"; "we need to work together"; "I will approach our differences in a spirit of respect"; and, "make a determined choice to have a productive relationship." Do not let propaganda hardliners mislead you and the Chinese people.
Second, clearly you, Premier Zhu Rongji, and others have been making a determined effort to reform the PLA and make it more accountable to civilian leadership by getting the military out of business and seeking to reduce corruption. Further, you have increased the crisis management capabilities of the Chinese government with the creation of the Central Leading Group for Security Work. After a few rough days in the aftermath of the plane collision, this group exercised control over the incident in a way that was helpful to its resolution. Your decision to have the incident handled by the Foreign Ministry, and not the PLA, was exceedingly wise.
Based on your past actions indicating a desire for stable and productive U.S.-China relations, I assume that the reason that you allowed the American crew to be detained for so long was that your initial understanding of the collision came from the PLA that misrepresented the situation to obscure its own responsibility and justify a larger claim on future budgetary resources. This trapped central leaders into taking uncompromising positions that painted your government into a corner, and from which it was most difficult to escape when it became apparent that your aircraft was far too close to the American airplane. Moreover, these initially self-serving reports inflamed the Chinese people unnecessarily, thereby making a mutually satisfactory resolution of the incident just that much more difficult to achieve. Effective civilian control of the PLA is essential. Given the general Wild West character of Hainan Island, it is unclear to me whether the military district there is under effective day-to-day supervision.
Finally, the Chinese government’s demands to end surveillance from international airspace not only is unacceptable, it is inconsistent with your government’s own behavior. China engages in reconnaissance along the coasts of Japan and Vietnam.
So, let’s move forward by recognizing that you have an administration in Washington that desires productive bilateral relations, just as Vice Premier Qian Qichen indicated was your government’s desire during his March visit to our country. Let’s make the upcoming meeting in Beijing successful by agreeing on how the accident occurred and how to avoid future incidents. Both nations will make fateful choices in the wake of these discussions.
(David M.
Lampton is Director of Chinese Studies at The Nixon Center.)
