China's Political Strategy Exposed

Insight on the News, April 23, 2001 by J. Michael Waller

Communist China is using sophisticated methods to try to manipulate the Bush administration into doing its will, including mobilizing influential Republicans on its behalf.

President George W. Bush and his national-security team are in the crosshairs of an aggressive Chinese influence operation to manipulate the administration's decisions about security interests in Asia. Through a combination of high diplomacy, personal contacts, media campaigns, threats and money, Beijing is exploiting divisions within the Bush camp and the Republican Party.

The immediate goal is to prevent the White House from authorizing sales of defensive military equipment to Taiwan and from deploying effective defenses against China's small but growing arsenal of tactical and strategic ballistic missiles.

Beijing rapidly is modernizing its primitive military from an almost purely defensive armed force to one that can project offensive power throughout the region and hold the United States hostage to nuclear blackmail. First on its list of objectives is the retaking of Taiwan, which it views as a renegade province. The trump card of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in its campaign against the island is its formidable buildup of ballistic missiles across the Taiwan Strait -- a move that easily would be checkmated if the United States were to sell Taiwan four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with the supersophisticated Aegis air-defense and battle-management system. This would allow Taiwan to knock out missile attacks from the mainland. Not only that, but the ships would enable the United States to include Taiwan in a regional theater-missile-defense system with other allies, including South Korea and Japan.

Similarly, Beijing wants to make sure the United States never deploys an antiballistic-missile system that would eliminate the threat of its small but growing force of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) aimed at the American heartland. The game for Beijing is to leave Taiwan and the United States vulnerable to missile blackmail.

The Chinese campaign bears all the hallmarks of a Soviet-era "active-measures" operation except that it is far more sophisticated and likely to have a higher degree of success. Whereas the Soviets tried to exploit naYve liberals and moderates to do their bidding, the PRC is mobilizing worldly Republicans and businessmen drawn into situations where their profits depend on keeping China's Communist rulers happy.

Beijing's previous major influence operations concentrated on the annual certification for "most favored nation" (MFN) trading status -- a name that so embarrassed policymakers that they changed it to something more bland. Now, that sophisticated active-measures machine is focusing on military matters that directly affect U.S. national security.

In an orchestrated campaign of good cop/bad cop, Chinese officials have gone directly to U.S. public opinion, trying to appeal to sentimental feelings of cooperation and partnership while literally threatening war. The operation is aimed at five levels: the American public at large, journalists who influence the public and decisionmakers, business elites, Congress and the president and his inner circle.

"It's a remarkable campaign," a savvy administration official tells Insight. "We haven't even settled in here and the Chinese have sent three high-level groups of emissaries to lobby the president, his national-security team and even members of his family."

The regime has sharply focused its message. Rather than a blanket condemnation of all U.S. arms sales to Taipei, as had been its pattern, the PRC took a more nuanced approach to target only certain weapons systems, namely those key Aegis warships. It made relatively few objections to the sale of less-capable Kidd-class destroyers that have no missile-defense role.

The first PRC delegation visit, in February, consisted of former ambassadors to Washington and Ottawa who were well-connected in both capitals. The second, in late February and early March, included a senior official responsible for Taiwan affairs. The third was a high-level visit of Vice Premier Qian Qichen, who is responsible for coordinating foreign policy and dealing with Taiwan. All three visited Washington without an invitation, which diplomatic sources say is a sharp break with PRC protocol that always had been to await an official invitation.

The timing was exquisite, coming as it did just before President Bush was to decide which weapons the United States would sell to Taiwan. Official PRC sources say that Qian had four items on his agenda: concern about the administration's criticism of the Chinese human-rights situation, Beijing's weapons proliferation to Iraq, upcoming sales of U.S. arms to help Taiwan defend itself and opposition to a U.S. national missile-defense system.

While Qian and others focused on trying to influence the decisionmakers one-on-one, others (including PRC President Jiang Zemin) sought to influence the American public and the Washington body politic by courting prominent news organizations with rare, exclusive interviews. In a Beijing interview with the Washington Post that avoided the shrillness on display from his colleagues, Jiang labored to project a folksy and humorous image while being careful to be firm about the Aegis warships, rejecting a U.S. proposal to forego the sale if the PRC withdraws its missile force aimed at Taiwan. Jiang spoke of an influence network that rivals anything he had under the Clinton/Gore administration.