| Long standoff could hurt Bush, Jiang at home Tough talk by leaders early on may have backfired, analysts say 04/11/2001 By David Jackson and Richard Whittle / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON – President Bush says the longer the standoff with China lasts, the greater the damage to relations between Washington and Beijing.
But that's not the only thing in danger, according to political analysts.
"It's also Bush who is running a risk," said William Schneider, an analyst with CNN. "It may already be turning into a hostage crisis."
If the standoff becomes a seemingly endless stalemate, Mr. Bush could see his popular support fade along with his political strength, analysts said – bad news for a narrowly elected president in a divided political environment.
White House aides cited Mr. Bush's strong public support, including a Gallup Poll on Tuesday in which 61 percent of respondents said they approved of his actions in seeking the return of 24 American military personnel. They add that the president doesn't see it as a political issue in any case.
"The president is just not looking at it in that manner," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "The president is looking at how best to get our men and women home."
Foreign policy analysts pointed out that Mr. Bush wasn't the only one facing potential political damage from the affair.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Vice President Hu Jintao and their country risk increased American arm sales to Taiwan, loss of trade status with the United States and defeat of China's bid for the 2008 Olympics.
Mr. Jiang must be especially careful in dealing with his country's military, said Lee Hamilton, a Democrat and former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Chinese military is apparently pushing for an American apology over the midair collision that led to the emergency landing of the U.S. spy plane and the apparent death of a Chinese pilot.
"Jiang is not Deng Xiaoping, he does not have the authority that Deng had, and he wants to continue beyond his presidency of China to control the Central Military Commission, which is the way Deng held on to power," Mr. Hamilton said. "To do that, he has to please the military."
Lu Ning, who became a U.S. citizen after abandoning a 13-year career as a Chinese diplomat, said that with Mr. Jiang traveling in Latin America, Mr. Hu and a small circle of younger leaders appear to be handling all aspects of the standoff over the plane.
Mr. Lu, author of The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Decisionmaking in China, said Mr. Hu probably feels even greater pressure to satisfy the Chinese military, "if he wants to be successful and become the new paramount leader" after Mr. Jiang retires.
Early moves criticized
The standoff might not have been necessary, Mr. Lu added, if U.S. officials hadn't reacted so toughly in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. plane's emergency landing.
"Bush came out too early to make a very tough statement, so Jiang Zemin felt it necessary for him to respond," Mr. Lu said. "My assessment is that, actually, they wanted to return the crew quite quickly, but after Bush made his statement demanding the crew and the airplane, that made the situation worse. The Chinese had no interest in the crew, but they had an interest in the airplane."
Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has said that when Mr. Bush made his first statement "the president felt that a very firm message to the Chinese, that access to our crew was an absolute imperative, was important."
David Lampton, director of China studies at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies, said both sides set the stage for the confrontation with their initial remarks.
U.S. officials demanded the U.S. plane and crew back, he noted. The Chinese, meanwhile, immediately declared that the United States was to blame and demanded an apology.
"After that, I think the [Bush] administration's done pretty well," Mr. Lampton said.
Mr. Bush enjoys nearly unanimous support on the issue from both parties in Congress. Off Capitol Hill, however, some Republicans have called Mr. Bush too soft with China, while some Democrats said he may have prolonged the problem by being too aggressive at the outset.
Democratic congressional aides said members were duty-bound to back the president in an international dispute. But members may not remain silent if Americans are still being held when Congress returns from recess the week of April 23.
Mr. Hamilton, now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said that Mr. Bush's initial demands "hardened the Chinese position, and it limited their options."
He added that Mr. Bush also erred before the crisis even started by not having called Mr. Jiang as he had other world leaders. But Mr. Hamilton said that in more recent days the president had "handled it pretty well," and most Americans seem to share that view.
"The political pressures on him in this country are formidable," Mr. Hamilton said of Mr. Bush. "The American people have never had a consensus on how to deal with China, and even within the Republican Party, there's no consensus."
Indeed, Mr. Bush's expressions of regret for the death of the Chinese pilot have brought harsh criticism from The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine. It blasted Mr. Bush in an editorial entitled "a national humiliation," saying he "has revealed weakness. And he has revealed fear."
One of the editorial's authors, William Kristol, said Mr. Bush apparently wanted to focus on domestic policy, but foreign policy could continue to "rear up" – especially if he flunks this first test.
"If China thinks it can be rewarded for misbehavior, other nations may think they can be rewarded for misbehavior," Mr. Kristol said.
Foreign policy analysts said Mr. Jiang may have more to lose if he fails to handle the incident correctly in the eyes of his countrymen.
They note that the Chinese leadership is in the midst of a succession struggle in which Mr. Jiang is trying to retain control of the armed forces.
He "is between a rock and a hard place," Mr. Lampton said.
He added that the Chinese position may have hardened because the military and much of the populace are "resentful" of the United States.
"When the Chinese military says, 'We're going to stand up to the foreigner,' that's a popular line," Mr. Lampton said. "The Chinese military itself, and I think the Chinese polity as a whole, thinks the United States has humiliated it."
In 1993, he recalled, the U.S. Navy boarded a Chinese ship on the high seas on the suspicion that it was carrying chemical weapons, but it was not.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton had two aircraft carrier battle groups sail to Taiwan, forcing the Chinese military to halt maneuvers that seemed to threaten the disputed island.
And in 1999, during NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo, a U.S. plane bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese. The United States apologized for that incident, which it called an accident.
Economic dangers
But Mr. Jiang must balance his desire to satisfy the military with the knowledge that damaged U.S.-China relations could lead to economic losses that undermine the government's political base.
China made $83 billion trading with the United States last year, which helped offset rising unemployment. But members of Congress and others have warned that if China fails to release the crew and airplane soon, the House and Senate might cut off China's normal trade status this year and oppose its entry into the World Trade Organization.
"He knows if he jeopardizes the economic growth plan and the open policy and trade and investment, the party's in serious trouble, because its main legitimacy is the economic welfare of the people," Mr. Lampton said. "No one believes in communism anymore."
Foreign policy analysts have speculated on why China is waiting so long to release the Americans. Some believe China wants to change American plans to sell weapons to Taiwan. But former U.S. arms-control negotiator Jack Mendelsohn sees a Chinese protest against U.S. plans to develop an anti-missile defense system.
Mr. Mendelsohn said the situation was "very embarrassing for the Bush administration because they wanted to start out hard-line."
"They're finding that if they're hard-line with the Chinese, they don't get anything out of them – the Chinese are just as hard-line," Mr. Mendelsohn said. "And the Chinese want this administration to grovel a little bit."
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