October 29, 1997
LIBERTIES
/
By MAUREEN DOWD
The Actor And the Tyrant
WASHINGTON -- Whoever thought the American
Gigolo would become a light unto
America?
But with everyone else tucked so
securely into the pocket of the Chinese -- the Clinton Administration,
former Presidents, former Secretaries of State and the business community -- the most audible dissenting
voice on our craven China policy
belongs to . . . Richard Gere!
The actor, who wears Buddhist
prayer beads on one wrist and an
expensive watch on the other, has
been ridiculed as an airhead since
the 1993 Oscars, when he asked the
billion people watching the show to
beam vibes of "love and truth and a
kind of sanity" to Deng Xiaoping.
David Thompson, who writes
about Hollywood, once mocked Mr.
Gere as "a fashion plate of meditation, the Dalai Lama on one arm,
Cindy Crawford on the other."
But it is a measure of Washington's
moral and intellectual bankruptcy
that the reflections of Richard Gere
now seem so compelling. (When Al
Gore wanted to offer a deep thought
on the dangers of homophobia, he rose
to the defense of a sitcom.)
China's President, Jiang Zemin, is
being portrayed in news reports as a
despot who wants to be loved, the
sort of guy who, after a few fiery
maotais at a banquet, might belt out
"Love Me Tender" or recite sections
of the Declaration of Independence.
(Proving something about his memorization skills but nothing about his
reading comprehension.) Slavishly
imitating the more commanding
Deng, who put on a 10-gallon hat and
rode around the Astrodome in a
stagecoach in 1979, Mr. Jiang put on
a three-cornered hat yesterday as he
was led around Williamsburg by tour
guides dressed as Thomas Jefferson
and Patrick Henry. (Forgive me, but
this is sacrilegious.)
The President met socially with
Mr. Jiang last night in the White
House residence to set a feel-good
mood. Proving again that he likes
bonding more than leading.
So it fell to the man designated "a
pin-up" by the November Vogue to
provide a reality check. This is what
we have come to.
"I think we're all very disappointed with our President," Mr. Gere
told Katie Couric, noting that the
State Department said human rights
abuses had grown worse in China
and Tibet since Mr. Clinton "de-linked" trade and human rights.
The actor does fall into the argot of
massage therapy at times. "You can
feel the tension there," he said on a
PBS "Frontline" documentary about
China. "You can feel the rigidity of
letting go, of how hard it is for them
to let go and ultimately, as we all
know, that's about insecurity."
Henry Kissinger, the highly paid
China apologist, told PBS, "I think
that Richard Gere is a better actor
than he is a political analyst." Of
course, an insult from the amoral
Mr. Kissinger is a badge of honor,
even for an actor.
Needless to say, Hollywood has its
own China policy. Film makers are
casting a very harsh light on Chinese
authoritarianism. In "Seven Years
in Tibet," they are even willing to
glorify the Nazi played by Brad Pitt
to knock the Chinese.
But entertainment pooh-bahs are
skittering away from the China-bashing movies, afraid of losing access to illusory Chinese markets.
Hearing the siren song of a Shanghai Disneyland, Michael Eisner has
hired Mr. Kissinger to help him assuage Chinese outrage over the Disney movie "Kundun," Martin Scorsese's life of the Dalai Lama.
On the Charlie Rose show Mr.
Eisner sounded as if he wanted to
strangle "Kundun" in its crib.
"We're distributing it, and hopefully
the Chinese'll understand," the Disney chief said. "In this country, you
put out a movie, it gets a lot of
momentum for six seconds and is
gone three weeks later."
Mr. Gere pushed to have the premiere of his new movie, "The Red
Corner," in which he plays an American lawyer framed for murder in
Beijing, coincide with the Jiang visit.
When President Clinton gives the Chinese leader a 21-gun salute on the
South Lawn today, Mr. Gere will be at
a rally across the street featuring a
replica of the Goddess of Democracy,
the symbol of the Tiananmen Square
massacre. China's bosses, abetted by
our corporations, have persuaded Mr.
Clinton to walk away from his campaign ideals on that horror.
Mr. Clinton's major China speech
last week was pablum. "At the dawn
of a new century, China stands at a
crossroads," he intoned.
Now if only Ellen would come out
for sanctions . . .