The Political Interest Putting Business First

By Michael Kramer

Until now, discerning a common thread in Bill Clinton's foreign policy has been a futile exercise. Suddenly, though, a familiar coherence is emerging. Image and impulse no longer seem to guide policy, and Clinton, like his Republican predecessors, appears to have finally decided that he loathes repression less than he loves commerce.

Depending on one's point of view, extolling "the new centrality of economic policy in our foreign ((affairs))," to use Secretary of State Warren Christopher's phrase, represents either a welcome maturation or a damnable sellout. In any event, it is hardly a small change; it's a 180 degrees turn.

Clinton roared into office on a wave of idealism. With communism's collapse, he reasoned, America could freely indulge its passion for promoting democracy and protecting human rights. The President was quickly labeled the archetypal New Interventionist, and promising forceful action became a staple of his statements. The cost of such promises became clear in Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti. Clinton's retreat from all three has accommodated the public's revulsion at risking American lives without an obvious national interest on the line. When humanitarian interventions require force, the President has learned, there is safety in indifference.

Now Clinton has been reborn as a New Realist. The articulated heart of this philosophy is the need "to grow America's economy." The unarticulated dark side is, as James Lilley, a former U.S. Ambassador to China says, "the reassertion of geopolitics after the honeymoon with human rights." Assuring the personal freedom of everyone everywhere is still supposed to be America's great goal, but it will not be permitted to interfere ultimately with Clinton's trade-first strategy. No one would put it as baldly as Calvin Coolidge did when he said the business of America is business, but Christopher was only a bit less crass earlier this month. "The U.S.," he said, "must maintain a tough-minded sense of our enduring interests: our security, prosperity and, where possible, the advancement of our democratic values."

The Administration's China policy proves how limiting the words "where possible" can be, and confirms National Security Adviser Tony Lake's observation that American interests will, "at times, require us to befriend and even defend nondemocratic states for mutually beneficial reasons" (a summation Jeane Kirkpatrick could as easily have made). During the campaign, Clinton scored regularly with his attacks on George Bush for "coddling" China's dictators, and it was only last May that Trade Representative Mickey Kantor praised Levi Strauss & Co. for abandoning its China operations to protest Beijing's human-rights violations. But "the dance today," says a Clinton adviser, "is about moving China's abysmal human-rights record off the agenda; it's about ending the superheated argument about holding China's most- favored-nation ((trading)) status hostage to that record."

Until September, the Administration was still seriously saying the renewal of China's MFN status was at stake. Officials are saying the same today, but it's primarily for show. Even Christopher admitted to TIME before last week's Seattle summit that the MFN discussion is essentially fake. "We have to be realistic about our political system," the Secretary said. "There are certain realities of American politics you have to deal with." Christopher was referring to the congressional majority that wants to punish China for maltreating its people. The political need to mute that anger explains the Administration's seemingly inconsistent recent musings about China's human- rights record.

Officially, the Administration won't renew MFN next June unless there is "significant overall progress" with respect to human rights in China. In practice, Christopher told TIME, "I'll look at the trend . . . We don't expect them to remedy all the wrongs . . . Little things like prison visits, whether they permit the Red Cross to go in" to inspect jail conditions could help a great deal. Within 48 hours of Christopher's comment, the Chinese did just that. But then in a letter to Clinton last week, 270 members of the U.S. House of Representatives demanded more -- and Christopher, whose minions had earlier embraced Beijing's move as if it were the second coming, said in Seattle on Friday that China's gestures to date are "certainly not adequate."

The pattern is emerging: a proud China won't admit it's conceding anything; when it does appear to give in, the Administration and Congress will argue about the sufficiency of those concessions. But the final scenario is clear. "China has the world's fastest growing economy," says a White House aide. "Every country in the world wants in -- as soon as possible and big time. We do too, and we're not going to let something like MFN stand in our way. It's going to take finesse with the Congress -- you'll see a lot more on-the- one-hand, on-the-other-hand stuff from Christopher -- but we've finally got our heads screwed on straight. That was what the President's note to the Chinese was all about. When he wrote in September that we support a 'strong, stable' China, those were code words used by previous Administrations, and now by us, to say we know you sometimes have to crack heads and we can live with that. The fact is that nothing we can do short of war can significantly impact on what China does to its own people. Meanwhile, we want a piece of the pie, a big piece, and we aim to get it."