Toward a New Foreign Policy.

U.S. public media and some politicians have often tended to exaggerate the threat from China. The U.S. should relate to China with confidence, not with fear. In the two decades since relations were normalized, China has gradually liberalized its economy, becoming an out ward-looking, commercial society sharing many interests with the United States. During this period, China has demilitarized to a much greater extent than has the United States. If China is to be a superpower, it seems destined to be an economic one more akin to Japan than a military superpower like the former Soviet Union. Although the U.S. might be strong enough to bully China, it should resist that temptation, because in the long run--like the pressure against Weimar Germany in the 1920s--bullying could divert China from its current hopeful path toward a more suspicious and antagonist relationship with the outside world.

Since China is not an aggressive or formidable military power, it is not necessary to "contain" the Chinese. Although Washington should not return to the pre-1989 policy of directly transferring military technologies to China, it is an unnecessary cold war hangover to restrict exports of dual-use high-technology equipment such as advanced computers or machine tools. It does Americans no credit to complain about a trade deficit with China if the U.S. refuses to sell high-technology equipment that is in demand for modernizing the Chinese economy.

There is also no danger in allowing American companies to cooperate with Chinese firms to launch satellites with Chinese rockets. Even if the Chinese military did thereby acquire information to make their ICBMs more accurate, such a move would not increase the vulnerability of the United States. The handful of nuclear-armed ICBMs that China possesses could hit a target as big as Los Angeles even without U.S. help, but only at the ridiculous cost of national suicide.

Some argue that China should be denied high-technology equipment as punishment for its previous assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. However, this would be counterproductive, since China has subsequently become more cooperative in preventing nuclear arms proliferation. For example, Beijing ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and agreed to curtail its exports of technology to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in 1996. Furthermore, China's most significant assistance to Pakistan's nuclear arms program came during the 1980s, when the U.S. was ignoring or perhaps even tacitly approving such assistance.

Washington will easily secure Chinese cooperation in regional arms control if the U.S. invites Beijing to participate in the negotiations and offers meaningful concessions to China. Most important would be an offer to limit U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan, especially TMD systems, in return for Chinese cooperation in regional arms reductions. During the cold war it was understood that U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations required mutual compromise to gain mutual benefit, but the U.S. tendency so far has been simply to demand Chinese adherence to multilateral agreements such as the MTCR and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even though they were negotiated without Chinese participation. Now that India and Pakistan are undisguised nuclear powers, the U.S. should encourage multilateral talks for worldwide nuclear arms reduction. The U.S. and China were the first two signatories to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996, which was an excellent beginning. Further progress could be made by negotiating reductions in existing stockpiles, elimination of delivery systems, extending the U.S.-Russian ABM treaty to ban or limit TMD in Asia, expansion of nuclear-free zones, and inclusion of India and Pakistan in the CTBT.

The Clinton administration and China have cooperated more effectively since 1996 on a range of security issues, including increased confidence building measures, renewal of U.S.-Chinese summit meetings, exchanges of senior officials, the four-party talks on Korea, and initial steps toward a U.S.-Japanese-Chinese security dialogue. Further progress might be made if Washington downplays bilateral security arrangements with Japan and South Korea (legacies of the cold war) in favor of multilateral discussions that include China. Since the Opium War, China has faced countless insults, invasions, and depredations from foreigners, unlike anything in American experience. China must be treated with dignity if this bitter history is to be overcome.

Key Recommendations

* The U.S. should relate to China with confidence, not with fear or with bullying tadics.

* Cold war-era controls on technology transfer are unnecessary for U.S. securily and harmful to U.S. exports.

* The U.S. should offer China full partnership in more comprehensive regional arms limitation agreements rather than merely demanding adherence to norms negotiated without Chinese participation.

James H. Nolt (noltj@newschool. edu) is a Senior Fellow specializing in East Asia relations at the Worm Policy Institute.