Source: FreeRepublic.com "A Conservative News Forum"

Admiral Sees Storm Clouds Over Red China

By Richard Halloran ,THE WASHINGTON TIMES HONOLULU

Washington Times, 02-20-99 Richard Holloran

The United States faces a period of difficult relations with China in the months immediately ahead, according to the outgoing commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific and Asia.

     Adm. Joseph Prueher, who is turning over his command here Feb. 19 after three years in the post, said China is having problems maintaining its economic growth rate and might run into widespread unemployment.

     If China's economic plans start to crumble, Adm. Prueher said, that would generate "great problems with stability." As Chinese leaders seek to stabilize the nation, he added in an interview, "that bleeds into human rights, it bleeds into control. It's a dilemma and that creates a problem with the United States."

     Adm. Prueher is turning over the command to Adm. Dennis Blair, who has been director of the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.

     Looking ahead, Adm. Prueher remarked:      "I think our approach needs to be one of respect and also of strength in dealing and working and moving forward with the Chinese."

     The course that Adm. Prueher advocates contrasts with inconsistencies in the administration's policy.

     President Clinton, for instance, was conciliatory toward the Chinese during his trip to China in June, but Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright recently gave them a tongue-lashing at an embassy reception in Washington.

     Despite differences, Adm. Prueher said he was optimistic about U.S. relations with China, notably those he has cultivated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

     In the long run, Adm. Prueher said he believes the Chinese are seeking to revive the concept of the Middle Kingdom in which China dominates Asia.

     "The Chinese believe they are the hub of the region," he said. "At some point in the future, they would like to have everyone in the region have to have China's approval for whatever they might want to do."

     In Shanghai recently, Adm. Prueher cautioned the Chinese that the United States seeks to ensure "that no hostile coalition arises" in Asia. "It is not in our mutual interest for any state, including the United States, to become a Pacific hegemony," he said.

     With China and North Korea building long-range missiles, Adm. Prueher predicts the United States will build a missile-defense system in the western Pacific -- a prospect that has generated vigorous protests from Beijing.

     Adm. Prueher, however, was adamant. "We would be irresponsible as nations develop missiles if we did not worry hard as we send our troops and our ships and our aircraft around the world," he said. "So we are going to do theater missile defense. We will do it in the Pacific."

     Whether that would include Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty, was left open. Adm. Prueher said only: "We've had no discussions with Taiwan on that."

     Adm. Prueher said the possibility of hostilities had been discussed with senior officers of the Peoples Liberation Army, as well as with military leaders of Taiwan, with which the United States has quasi-diplomatic relations.

     "All of us agree that bringing the China-Taiwan issue to a military type of confrontation is a no-winner," he said. "That path doesn't take anybody anywhere any of us want to go."

     Asked about the sea lane through the South China Sea -- which is vital to the economies of East Asia and, indirectly, the industrial world --Adm. Prueher said, "We support freedom of navigation," even though China claims sovereignty over a number of islands in that sea.

     Adm. Prueher said that 114 ships a day, or 41,600 a year, pass through the Straits of Malacca at the southern entrance to the waterway, with most turning toward Northeast Asia. In contrast, 42 ships a day, or 15,300 a year, pass through the Panama Canal.

     To preserve the freedom of navigation, Adm. Prueher said, "We have a fairly robust military presence transiting through the South China Sea frequently," including amphibious ships loaded with Marines.

     "We do not advertise it a lot," he said, "but we're looking at making a little bigger show of our presence there than we have in the past."

     On other issues, Adm. Prueher said:

The United States should pay more attention to Indonesia because that nation, troubled by economic calamity and political distress, sits athwart the Straits of Malacca and is the strategic center of Southeast Asia.

Indonesia's army has been criticized for being heavy-handed in seeking to keep order, but Adm. Prueher argued it has done a "good job at keeping anarchy from prevailing."

Japanese and Americans, including Congress, should be more aware of the mutual costs and benefits of stationing U.S. forces in Japan. Japan pays $5 billion a year in support and bears the irritations of foreign troops on its soil.

The United States defends Japan with soldiers and sailors who would rather serve at home. "In most of the dialogue I hear," Adm. Prueher said, "all of these costs and mutual benefits are not usually brought out."

The Pacific Command has sufficient forces to meet an emergency in Korea or "for any contingency we think is remotely likely," even though units have been dispatched to the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere in Europe.

But the command is deficient in communications, logistics, intelligence, mobility and base facilities. A year from now, staff officers said, those shortcomings will begin to hurt.

Quarrels between Beijing and Washington erupt almost by the day. On the front burner now are President Clinton's proposal to Congress that China's trade status be renewed under the Normal Trade Relations act, known before as Most Favored Nation. That will surely trigger off vigorous criticism on Capitol Hill and an equally vehement response from Beijing.

In addition, Chinese President Jiang Zemin has told Clinton that China is not interested in reopening discussions on China's admission to the World Trade Organization because Sino-U.S. relations are not good. The Chinese are angry because the U.S. has been blocking Beijing's admission to the WTO until Beijing removes what Washington considers to be protectionist trade barriers.

Further, the Justice Department in Washington is reportedly considering an indictment against a Chinese company for alleged violation of U.S. export laws by diverting civilian equipment to military use. That is almost certain to provoke a heated response from Beijing.

Earlier, unanimous resolutions passed by the House and Senate condemned Beijing for killing unknown hundreds of protesters in Tiananmen Square 10 years ago on June 4. The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, charged that "the U.S. Congress brazenly and peremptorily interfered in China's internal affairs."

Those resolutions were overshadowed by the raging dispute over the Cox Report alleging that Chinese agents had stolen U.S. nuclear secrets and conducted 20 years of intelligence operations through 3000 "front" companies. The chairman of the bipartisan House committee that compiled the report, Rep. Christopher Cox, Republican of California, said China "has mounted a widespread effort to obtain U.S. military technology by any means, legal or illegal."

Chinese officials first scoffed at the report as the work of Americans "clinging to the Cold War mentality," then fired a furious barrage asserting that it raised "the specter of McCarthyism," was filled with "malign slander," and was a "fabrication" that should be repudiated by President Clinton.

Several days earlier, the Chinese revived the ancient tactic of keeping the barbarian waiting at the gate to underscore Chinese superiority. President Jiang Zemin stalled for a week before picking up the telephone to accept President Clinton's apologies for the NATO bombing of Beijing's embassy in Belgrade in early May. Clinton said the bombing was an accident; Jiang insisted it was deliberate to humiliate China.

Afterward, Jiang asserted: "The United States continues to pursue hegemonism and power politics and wantonly interferes in the internal affairs of other countries." He was echoed by the Communist Party's People's Daily, which contended that the recent expansion of NATO, a new U.S.-Japan defense agreement, and "aggression against Yugoslavia" were part of a U.S. strategy for "world hegemony." Hegemony is China's buzzword for domination.

The assault on the American embassy in Beijing by government-sponsored demonstrators in retaliation for hitting the Chinese embassy in Belgrade has triggered a backlash. A former ambassador to Beijing, Winston Lord, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "the Beijing government has exploited the NATO blunder in an extremely provocative, irresponsible and dangerous manner."

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, told the London Daily Telegraph that the Chinese "have got to start showing some maturity here and right now, otherwise, we are going to end up in a confrontation, which is in the interest of neither country."

The next outburst will probably be provoked when Clinton asks Congress to renew China's trading status under Normal Trade Relations, formerly known as Most Favored Nation. Many members of Congress may object vigorously, thus roiling the waters in Washington even more. Clinton's China policy has been shredded by dissent in Congress and even in the search for an envoy to replace Ambassador James Sasser, who planned many months ago to resign. Five or six politicians and diplomats turned down the position, a silent critique on Clinton because rarely in the American tradition does anyone decline a request by the president to serve.

Then the job was offered to Adm. Prueher, former commander of U.S. Pacific forces, with headquarters in Hawaii. But it came under a cloud. The staff of the National Security Council leaked word of the appointment, perhaps as a trial balloon. Critics in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill have contended that Prueher became cozy with Chinese military leaders in promoting exchanges, even though his message was explicit: Do not miscalculate U.S. military capabilities.

White House spokesmen did not deny the leaks but neither did they confirm them. Prueher has had no comment on his nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and a critic of Clinton, heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will conduct hearings.

Prueher will most likely advocate the balanced strategy he forged during his tenure as Pacific commander. "I think our approach needs to be one of respect and also of strength in dealing and working and moving forward with the Chinese," he said.

His respect for China, he said, came from challenges of governance - providing food, clothing, shelter, jobs and energy for 1.2 billion people.

"I think it's going to be more difficult in the months ahead," Prueher said, because many economists estimate that China's growth rate has been 5.5 percent instead of the nearly 8 percent claimed by Beijing. They say 8 percent is needed to keep unemployment at a tolerable rate.

Added to China's economic problems at home are those with Washington, which is angry about the $57 billion trade deficit with China caused by Beijing's protectionist barriers.

The strength on which Prueher would rely is U.S. military power. In 1996, he recommended and Washington approved the dispatch of two aircraft carriers to the waters east of Taiwan after China fired missiles toward that island, considered a breakaway province by Beijing.

In addition, Prueher cultivated professional relations with leaders of China's People's Liberation Army, to assure them that the U.S. does not intend to contain China and to caution them against military miscalculation, the greatest cause of war. He made these points in private conversations and public pronouncements.

Prueher has also been adamant in urging the U.S. and its allies in East Asia to build a regional defense against expanding Chinese and North Korean missile forces. The Chinese have been equally adamant in opposing the plan because it would render most of their missiles obsolete.

In the past three years, Prueher has become an avid student of China. He has read Chinese strategists from Sun Tzu of the fifth century, B.C., to Mao Tse-tung in the 20th century, talked with scholars from Stanford to Harvard, made a half-dozen trips to China, and read a flood of intelligence reports "to learn more about Chinese culture as an influence on their decision-making, more than Communism."

In the concept of the Middle Kingdom, China sees itself as a dominant power with other states submitting tribute. Prueher said "the Chinese believe they are the hub in the region." Therefore, they "would like to have everyone in the region have to have China's approval for whatever they might want to do."

Richard Halloran, former foreign and military correspondent with The New York Times, writes on Asia from Honolulu.