FIRlnGLlne HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. GUESTS: HENRY KISSINGER, JASON HU, DONALD GREGG, RICHARD DICKER SUBJECT: "CHINA, SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS"

Transcription

1 o FIRlnGLlne HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. GUESTS: HENRY KISSINGER, JASON HU, DONALD GREGG, RICHARD DICKER SUBJECT: "CHINA, SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS" FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL. This is a transcript of the Firing Line program (#1050/2440) taped in New York City on May 30, 1995, and telecast later on public television stations. copyright 1995 FIRING The copyright laws of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. If a user makes a request for, or later uses a photocopy or reproduction (including handwritten copies) for purposes in excess of fair use, that user may be liable for copyright infringement. Users are advised to obtain permission from the copyright owner before any re-use of this material. Use of this material is for private, non-comercial, and educational purposes; additional reprints and further distribution is prohibited. Copies are not for resale. All other rights reserved. For further information, contact Director, Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA LINE

2 MR. BUCKLEY: This is the second hour devoted to the question: How should the United states government react to news of criminal justice abuses, political imprisonment, and detention without charge or trial in China. To discuss that question and the relevance to security we have Dr. Jason Hu, the Government Information director of the Taiwanese government; Mr. Richard Dicker who is counsel to the Human Rights Watch Organization; Donald Gregg, who was the ambassador to South Korea; and Henry Kissinger, perhaps the outstanding policy analyst afloat. So we bear down on the question and look back in recent history for some help. I would like to ask Dr. Kissinger's views of whether the Jackson Amendment accelerated the achievement of human rights in the Soviet Union, after which I will ask about the South African experience. DR. KISSINGER: The Jackson Amendment was the one that cut off most-favored-natiqn status dependent on certain emigration conditions by the Soviet Union. That amendment was put forward at the end of the period where the United States had increased immigration from the Soviet Union by private diplomacy from 700 to at least 40,000 a year. Then the Soviets put on a tax and Jackson put forward his amendment and the Soviets withdrew the tax. At this point the Jackson Amendment was extremely successful. If he had dropped the amendment at that point, it would have been a perfect case of the interplay between pressure and result. However, encouraged by this relatively rapid success, he then extended it and made specific conditions: How many people had to emigrate? From what parts of the country? And then immigration fell from 40,000 a year to about no more than 5,000 a year until the Soviet Union disintegrated. MR. BUCKLEY: Was this because they couldn't meet the terms or because their pride had been finally provoked? DR. KISSINGER: They didn't accept the principle. There was one point at which it looked as if an agreement had been reached, and Gromyko sort of agreed that the figure of 40,000 would be maintained indefinitely. But then Jackson announced that it was a great triumph of pressure, and then everything fell apart. There is a limit beyond which governments cannot accept the proposition that outsiders by threats can make them do things that are normally considered in their domestic jurisdiction, like emigration. MR. BUCKLEY: How would South Africa fit in that situation?

3 DR. KISSINGER: South Africa was one of the few cases where sanctions worked, partly because the ruling minority was not strong enough to impose its will on an 80 percent majority against it, plus a united outside world, and partly because the economy of South Africa was so extraordinarily dependent on foreign trade. So if you can get a united world opinion bringing sanctions on a somewhat shaky government that cannot use defective sanctions to rally its population, then it can work. MR. BUCKLEY: Dr, Hu, when it seemed all the world turned against you in 1979, were sanctions a part of the pressure imposed on you by other countries? DR. HU: No, it was never so. There was no economic sanction-- MR. BUCKLEY: The ostracism was purely diplomatic. DR. HU: Yes, it was purely political, diplomatic isolation that-- MR. BUCKLEY: Well, what do you call it when you-- DR. HU: --we tend to suffer from. MR. BUCKLEY: --suspend airline service? Isn't that an economic sanction? DR. HU: In a sense, but then, you know, you can try hard to try to negotiate resumption of airline services. We are still operating with 34 airlines, I think, that are operating internationally from Taipei. So it is okay. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. DR. HU: It didn't degenerate to that extent with the breakoff of diplomatic ties. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Ambassador Gregg, with the sanctions against North Korea which have been going on for years and years and years, do we have here a situation like South Africa's in which it can or ought to be the ultimate instrument, or are they too autarchic in their resources? MR. GREGG: I think that North Korea is really at a base level and they desperately-- One of the pressures they are working under at this point is the fact that there isn't enough food to feed their people; they are desperately trying

4 to get rice in from the outside. And 1 think that the isolation has been effective. What really helped was when Russia and China recognized South Korea and stopped giving any concessional aid to North Korea, so that really the decline of their political fortunes also contributed to their isolation. MR. BUCKLEY: Why don't they accommodate? Why aren't they more accommodating? MR. GREGG: They are terribly afraid of change. There is an old Korean saying that he who rides the tiger is in imminent danger of being eaten if he tries to get off. And they are trying to get off the tiger, andj:r::n.~i1.::::!::#.i1.i9.rt!m!m:, who 1 think is gradually working his way towarct'""'e'he""""a"s"s"'i:imp"tion of power, is receiving contradictory advice from the hardliners, who say, "Be like your father. Continue self reliance," and those with the economic orientation, who say, "We've got to change; we've got to open up." Could 1 say one other thing on South Africa? MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. GREGG: And that is, 1 think, while there were sanctions, there was also something else going on, called constructive engagement, andi:::w.ig#.::':igpq:qgglij:::!:::~asthe architect of that and pursued it throll'gh fhi'ek ' 'a'ild" thin. And 1 don't think you really can argue with the results. 1 would say that perhaps Nelson Mandela is about the only truly world-class leader on the scene today. And however it came about, 1 think the calibration of policies really worked. MR. BUCKLEY; Yes, 1 think Mandela is terrific, but 1 don't think it's quite correct to say that some form of diplomatic alchemy made him terrific. 1 mean, if he had been a Fidel Castro-- 1 don't know what we did that would have made him become a Mandela rather than a Castro, do you? MR. GREGG: No, 1 think Nelson Mandela is Nelson Mandela, and-- MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. GREGG: --1 think we are very fortunate that he is there to play the role that he is playing. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, and he pursued a certain orthodoxy; he refused to denounce terrorism right up until three or four years ago, so therefore he satisfied his hard left wing. But

5 he is terrific. But I guess my point is we oughtn't to think of him as the creation-- MR. GREGG: Right. MR. BUCKLEY: --of constructive engagement. Now, your organization, does it call for sanctions of the kind we have been talking about against, say, mainland China? MR. DICKER: Well, just to go back for one second to the question of South Africa, I think that with all due respect to.! :$.::!:d!!!iqgg :p, the policy of constructive engagement tow aras...~ro ;ifh Africa was ineffective towards opening that country up. I think it was the sanctions regime and the diplomatic isolation that was much more important in influencing the national party to make an opening that allowed ultimately Nelson Mandela to become president of South Africa. In regard to China, our position had been for several years that the use of the threat of China's mostfavored-nation trade status constituted an important and viable policy mechanism for the government of the United States to use to try to press the Chinese to make some of them. MR. BUCKLEY: You mean force them in the sense that it would cost them a lot if they didn't get it? MR. DICKER: Well, I think frankly in 1993, 38 percent of all China's exported goods came to the United States. The U.S. was a huge export market for China. Still is, and that export market and maintaining it and expanding it is critical to the Chinese leadership's plans to stay in power. So I think over a several-year period the MFN mechanism proved to be, while crude, while somewhat broad--broadly focused--but nonetheless the most effective bilateral policy mechanism in extracting some few concessions from the Chinese leadership. And I just want to say at this point I don't think it will be the human rights policies of this government or other governments that will ultimately change China. I think that's up to the Chinese people. I think what we are trying to do by pressing Beijing to adhere to its commitment to international standards is to create some space for the individuals in China who are signing the petitions today requesting from their government greater tolerance for dissenting political views. MR. BUCKLEY: Do we have any kind of diplomatic-- Rather, do we have any access to the Chinese via radio signals? Is there a sense in which we are transmitting to them a sense of

6 identification with those who are oppressed? MR. DICKER: Well, I think certainly the Chinese dissident community--and Chinese people beyond the dissident community--listen to VOA broadcasts, listen to BBC broadcasts, get a great deal of information from those broadcasts, which is why in fact the Chinese leadership has jammed the signal for many years and attempted to interfere with that communication of information. MR. BUCKLEY: Because they are afraid of it. Dr. Kissinger, let me ask you this. We see prospectively a situation in which China will, let's say, continue to test nuclear weapons and in the course of doing so perhaps develop a carrier system that makes them a threat. Now this impinges very sharply on American interests, indeed on world interests. Is this a matter for diplomacy or is it a stage at which we need to use muscle, assuming it were at any point relevant? DR. KISSINGER: If you mean should we try to deprive China of its nuclear capability-- MR. BUCKLEY: Well, obviously we should.. DR. KISSINGER: that would be a what I do favor defense for the India--which is --by force or by the threat of force,'i think very dangerous course at this moment. And is the development of a ballistic missile United states for the situations of China, of coming along-- MR. BUCKLEY: Japan. DR. KISSINGER: --Japan, which is surely coming along--and without defining anyone of them as an enemy, we also cannot say in advance what may happen years down the road. For the United states to make itself the policeman of the world and use its military power to try to destroy the nuclear capabilities of potential superpowers like China or India, or for that matter, Japan, which sooner or later will come along--that I think would be a very grave decision. MR. BUCKLEY: Could we predict, Mr. Hu, that the government of Taiwan would be a consumer of any anti-ballistic system that we develop? DR. HU: We are very concerned about our security of course, but our basic strategy is to build up a credible deterrent. In other words, we would not be crazy to use our weapons or any military force for offensive forces against the obvious

7 enemy, so any element that would help us to develop a credible deterrent ability would be considered, of course. would not rule that out. Ballistic missile--defense system mainly. I MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Ambassador Gregg, on that general theme, has there been any penetration of the intentions of the North Koreans in the last few months since President Clinton arrived at that arrangement involving nuclear development? MR. GREGG: I think it is seeing through a glass very darkly and dimly. I think they are in a terrible box, and it's I think safe to say that they are going to be very difficult to negotiate with. I think there are some indications that they may possibly be reconsidering their preference for lightwater reactors, which could only come from South Korea and which would raise all kinds of psychological problems for them. So I'll be very interested to see if perhaps out of these latest talks in Kuala Lumpur there is an indication that perhaps they are considering some kind of coal-fired or oil-fired alternative to their power needs. The South Koreans have already made a study of their electrical power grids. The two grids are compatible because they are based on the Japanese, and the South is aware that within a year they could hook the two power grids together and supply North Korea's power needs that way. The problem with that is that North Korea would then be at the mercy of a pull of the switch in the South, which I think they at this stage would be very reluctant to consider. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, to what extent has American pressure on Japan been successful in attempting to interrupt that flow of support made by North Koreas who work in Japan? MR. GREGG: I don't think it's been very effective. It's one of the-- That voting bloc in Japan is one that the ruling party continues to count on. I might say that I don't think I've ever seen Japan in such a difficult period of time. This Aum Shinrekyo thing is a horrific manifestation. They have just elected a clown as governor of Tokyo, a television actor who spent, I think, $800 as governor of Osaka. You can spend $800 on a dinner in Tokyo these days. The Japanese are in a very, very difficult stage of self-analysis, and I think we are wrong to, say, grab the auto industry issue and just it all out of context and just squeeze it as hard as we are at a time when the Japanese are subject to all kinds of crosscurrents within their own society. DR. KISSINGER: We ought to keep in mind two things with

8 respect to North Korea. The Japanese really prefer to keep Korea divided, because they feel that a united Korea will be basically anti-japanese and will get nuclear weapons anyway, given its advanced-- MR. BUCKLEY: Technology. DR. KISSINGER: --technology. Secondly, we should recognize that Japan is bound to move in a more national direction, not anti-american necessarily, but not so unquestioningly pro American as they were. Therefore we should not make issues with them that offend their pride, even if we win, unless we can relate them to some big objective. So I agree with you about this automotive issue. Their general conduct in trade requires challenge, but this is the sort of issue that is confrontational, where at the end of the day I would be amazed if we gained a lot. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, on the general point of sanctions, to be distinguished from trade retaliations, to what extent do you feel we have a commitment to be guided by the United Nations? The United Nations, as I remember, voted sanctions on Rhodesia, South Africa, anybody else? MR. GREGG: North Korea at one point. MR. BUCKLEY: North Korea at one point. Now this is-- MR. DICKER: Currently Iraq. MR. BUCKLEY: And currently Iraq. Now to what extent do you think that diplomatically one is bound by the reasoning of the United Nations? DR. KISSINGER: I quite frankly-- I make this distinction. If the United Nations-- First of all, it is very difficult to see whether the United Nations can pass anything that we strenuously oppose, certainly not in the field of sanctions. So we should not propose sanctions unless they serve our national interest. In the case of Iraq they clearly serve the national and the international interest. I am not a great admirer of the principle that we take a neutral position in the United Nations and then whatever they vote we will implement. That is an abdication of foreign policy that, except in the rarest cases, I would not agree with. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, do you think, Dr. HU, that the United Nations has a moral impact in these questions or is it so obviously opportunistic that people pay it no heed at that

9 level? DR. HU: Many people are disappointed about the United Nations, to begin with. I think there is no doubt of that. But we still think that we cannot live in a world that people would feel comfortable, which is amoral, so the United Nations should have some moral obligation toward developments around the globe everywhere. Even on our reentry into the UN, people said, you know, "All the reasons you have cited are moral reasons, your own moral highgrounds," which is useless. But do we really want to live in a world in which, you know, we only talk about realpolitik and moralism is nothing. Is that the kind of world we want? I mean, yes, maybe in this world today moralism is nothing, morality is irrelevant in international politics. But can you name a country which is happy and willing to be accused of being immoral? No. MR. BUCKLEY: Go ahead. MR. DICKER: Well, one point, dealing with the United Nations, certainly our organization has been critical of the UN's losing sight of human rights concerns in its various peacekeeping missions, but I think looking at the UN carefully, one sees again in the case of China, China is determined and lobbies furiously to defeat resolutions that come before it at the Human Rights Commission meeting-- MR. BUCKLEY: Which is a good sign. MR. DICKER: --which is I think a very good sign that the Chinese care a great deal. And I think another inference that one can draw from that is it provides in that instance a good mechanism by which to censure China for its widespread human rights violations. So I think a critical and careful look at different elements of the United Nations system leads us to think that the Commission on Human Rights resolutions are an effective way to proceed in terms of drawing attention to human rights violations. DR. KISSINGER: If I may say something on this issue, I don't like this distinction that the UN is moral and everybody else is pursuing realpolitik. If you look at the way America conducts foreign policy, there is no nation that I know that is more driven by moral considerations than the United States. No other country has the same degree of human rights organizations, the same degree of public-- The problem in America is to balance the moral, to relate the moral to the necessary, never to say that pure national interest can guide

10 our foreign policy. And if one looks at what the UN actually does, it is usually American leadership that drives it in the direction of these moral issues. It is not a free vote of 160 states in which the United states takes a passive role. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, when I was there, however briefly, I remember a series of travesties in which the Third Committee would condemn, oh, any right-wing dictator in Latin America but would refuse to condemn the Soviet Union or Red China. For instance, there was an initiative to condemn terrorism- an initiative, I think, by you--but they wanted to qualify terrorism and say, "This doesn't count if that terrorism is aimed at achieving national independence." It's okay to have it-- DR. KISSINGER: And Cuba was on the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. MR. BUCKLEY: Who was? DR. KISSINGER: Cuba was a member of the Human Rights Commission-- MR. GREGG: And still is. DR. KISSINGER: --of the UN. They were sitting in judgment on human rights. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. That's right. That's right. Well, in situations like that it seems to me that the whole currency of human rights tends to become debased, and it's kind of painful to listen to a representative of East Germany deploring the lack of human rights in West Germany. It requires you to sort of get out of gear and give up. MR. DICKER: I think that's certainly true. I think in the post-cold War world we are dealing with a different configuration and certainly the United Nations is a political environment--i agree with what Dr. Kissinger just said a moment ago--but I think it draws home the need, as you said, sir, for American leadership and the leadership of industrialized countries to really bring as broad a coalition together as possible to make the human rights values that are part of the UN Charter a forceful and viable policy imperative. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, was the United Nations ever a source of inspiration to the people who fought for individual freedoms in South Korea, or was it just simply an alien body

11 accidentally around. MR. GREGG: Well, I think the Korean War was the UN's greatest hour by accident-- MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. GREGG: --because the Soviet Union was out, they weren't able to veto the assembling of the 16-nation force. I think today in the post-cold War era all hell has broken loose suddenly in a number of different areas, and suddenly the UN has thrown on its plate more issues than it can deal with, and yet it's the only organization which by definition is out there trying to deal with it. And I think that the leaders of the individual countries have not done a very good job in terms of sitting down and coming to terms with all of the things that have been unleashed by the end of the Cold War, which was sort of like a giant magnet that held things in place. That was removed and Yugoslavia broke down and Russia broke down and so forth and it's the poor old UN who was sort of expected to come in and bring order out of chaos. MR. BUCKLEY: And that's because the UN doesn't have the advantage of the opinion of Taiwan, correct? [laughter] DR. HU: We would be very useful in the UN. MR. DICKER: Constructive. MR. BUCKLEY: The United Nations is an enduring source of injury in the memory of the Taiwanese or do they understand that it was just one of those things that were inevitable? DR. HU: No. It's very hard to say, of course. I think Americans are still probably the most friendly people to people in Taiwan. We've felt so for a long period. The United States is the only country that offered us aid and helped us through the difficult years. People remain grateful. We basically are just not happy about our current state. We are not vengeful, thinking who owe us what, who did this wrong to us? But we think it would be fair and useful for us and for the international community if we can be returned to the UN. MR. BUCKLEY: Thank you, Dr. Hu, Dr. Kissinger, gentlemen; thank you, ladies and gentlemen.