Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 30, 1994 TAG: 9406020045
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Presidents need to look at the practical, long-term effects of their positions - not just how it may look or feel to hold them. Even Chinese human-rights activists have noted that international commerce is a force for liberalization of China.
Plus, circumstances change. China's cooperation may be needed now to block North Korea's dangerous nuclear-weapons ambitions.
So Clinton's new policy is, in itself, defensible.
The problem, and it's a big one, is with the context. The China decision represents another instance in a troubling pattern evident throughout Clinton's foreign policies:
His talk does not match his deeds.
Such a pattern does nothing for the health of American democracy. When a presidential candidate attacks an incumbent for "coddling tyrants in Beijing," then proceeds to coddle them after assuming office, that encourages public cynicism about political discourse.
Especially if said candidate also attacked the incumbent for his policies on Haitian refugees and Bosnian Serbs - before proceeding pretty much to continue those policies as well.
A second problem with the disconnect between talk and action is that foreigners also pick up on it.
Serbs, Koreans, Haitians, Chinese and others aren't watching what Clinton says. They're watching what he does. And they haven't failed to notice that this president seems to have reversed Theodore Roosevelt's prescription. Instead of walking softly and carrying a big stick, Clinton treads heavily and carries no stick.
Which may seem like a cheap way to avoid entanglements and wars, especially at a time when the public shows no interest in risking American lives overseas.
But the surest result of alternating between threats and abdication is a loss of credibility, and that is expensive. Credibility allows a nation to influence events in its favor on the basis of reputation alone. If words aren't at least occasionally buttressed with deeds, influence will erode - and the resort to force becomes, ironically, more likely.
Yes, Clinton was elected to focus on domestic reforms. But these are threatened by his foreign problems. Yes, the confusion of his policies reflects a confused post-Cold War landscape. But a confused world cries out for policy coherence.
Yes, the president's critics viciously attack his policies without offering rational alternatives. If Clinton is baffled about what to do with Bosnia or Haiti or North Korea, so is everyone else - including members of Congress. But that just goes to show why presidential leadership is essential.
The first step is for Clinton to mean what he says.
by CNB