July 30, 1999
ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL
The March of Folly
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A phenomenon noticeable
throughout history regardless of
place or period is the pursuit by
governments of policies contrary to
their own interests.
"Why do holders of high office so
often act contrary to the way reason
points and enlightened self-interest
suggests?
"Why, to begin at the beginning,
did Trojan rulers drag that suspicious-looking wooden horse inside
their walls despite every reason to
suspect a Greek trick?"
The questions open a book by the
late American historian Barbara
Tuchman. Its title shames Western
democracy even more than when it
was published 15 years ago -- "The
March of Folly."
For most of this century we have
been staring at the horses of totalitarian governments and not only opening
the gate but stuffing them with feed.
We garlanded them with money and
weaponry -- until the soldiers leapt
out, German soldiers, Japanese,
Iraqis, soldiers who have been not
only a danger to us but the instrument
of oppression for their own people, the
engine of destruction of the freedoms
we hold so dear for ourselves.
But never have democracies accepted with such sweaty eagerness
the influence of totalitarian society, so
allowed themselves to be influenced
by foreign tyranny against their own
interests, turned a more cold and cowardly shoulder to the victims of foreign dictatorship than in the case of
Communist China. About China
America is no worse than its allies.
Right now, the issue is the right of
a small nation to mention in the
mildest terms a most obvious truth.
Taiwan, self-made and free, does not
demand independence but believes it
should deal with China as state to
state. That sent the ever-terrified
Beijing Politburo into froth-mouthed
fury and the U.S. Government into an
orgy of appeasement.
This slavering endorsement of China's vendetta against Taiwan is simply one example of the peonage of
American policy to China, and of the
knowing hypocrisy of "engagement"
and "partnership" with China.
Recognition of Communist China
as reality was overdue when Nixon-Kissinger "reopened" China. But
Americans believed that reopening
would include the Chinese people,
and engagement would include open
debate about the relative merits of
Communism and freedom.
Instead the engagement has become between the Washington and
Beijing bureaucracies. China's people? Beijing gave them orders to
continue keeping mouths closed. As
the price of doing business with China, Beijing ordered American businessmen to do the same. Our two
most recent Presidents passed on
the orders to their subordinates.
So America's Government apparatus zippered mouths about the real
extent and duration of Chinese espionage, about forced labor as an official
part of the Chinese economy, about
the enslavement of Tibet, the arrests
of Christians who refuse to worship
only in the place and manner ordered
by the Communist Party, and about
the continuing hysterical roundup of
Chinese whose tradition-based spiritual movement attracts millions.
For China to become far more influential in America requires more
than Presidents. Other parts of American society had to go along and have
-- the majority of Congress, press
commentators, academics, American
clergy who tell us not to rock the boat,
and particularly business.
American business executives
convinced themselves and their beneficiaries in politics that somehow
the Chinese economy, still tottering
under a Government frenzied with
fear of its own people, is a future U.S.
gold mine. Meanwhile, Americans
passively absorb the $50 billion trade
deficit the wait costs.
American believers in human
rights, secular and religious, do not
talk war. Only Beijing, not the Chinese or U.S. people, encourages hostility with threats and aggressive
insults. Human rights advocacy asks
only that we not strengthen despotism so that we become part of its
oppression machinery.
Why do powerful free nations like
America keep acting against their
interests by building up despotisms
until they feel strong enough to
threaten us?
One reason is self-deception stemming from stupidity -- the refusal to
learn from experience. In a person
that is a danger; in a free nation it is
closer to a deliberate sin.