Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505170049
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The answers are that it does have a policy, but the only consistent one is directed at the Republic of China, or Taiwan. However, that policy is indefensible and wrong.
Despite the near unanimous approval of Congress (360-0 in the House and 97-1 in the Senate) to allow it, the administration has refused Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui entry to this country on a private visit next month to attend a ceremony in his honor at Cornell University. Dr. Lee earned a doctorate at Cornell in 1968.
Yet this is the administration that has welcomed the IRA terrorist leader Gerry Adams and allowed him to raise funds on American soil. It has also embraced Yasser Arafat, the Dalai Lama and many others who were either of questionable character and reputation, or whom Beijing doesn't like. But the State Department believes that allowing Dr. Lee to attend a private ceremony would upset the communist Chinese, who apparently are needed to keep pressure on North Korea to make sure it lives up to its nuclear weapons freeze promise.
Why do we allow the Chinese Communists to tell us who can and who cannot visit America? They don't listen to us when we preach human rights to them. One longs for a return of the ``in-your-face'' attitude displayed by President Reagan. When 19-year-old tennis star Hu Na defected from the Chinese tennis team in 1982, Beijing threatened diplomatic mayhem if she wasn't returned. Reagan said she would be granted asylum if he had to adopt her himself. The Chinese then cut off cultural relations for a year, and no great lasting harm was caused to Sino-American relations.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew often visits Taiwan, and the Chinese have never complained. They know it wouldn't do them any good because Lee is not one to be pushed around.
Is America still the leader of the ``free'' world or not? If it is, then we should be standing up for free people, not cowering before dictators and inviting them to set the foreign policy of the United States.
When the Clinton administration took office, it properly began a review of American policy toward Taiwan. But instead of liberalizing the legacy it inherited, which allowed the premier and vice premier to transit the United States and stay overnight, while barring the president and vice president of Taiwan, this administration tightened restrictions, forbidding the premier and vice premier entry for any reason.
Vice Premier Hsu Li-Teh is scheduled to visit Vancouver this month and requested to stop in Hawaii for two days on his return to Taiwan. The State Department won't grant him a visa. Last year, the University of Chicago invited (as it has for several years) Premier Lien Chan, who received his Ph.D. from that school. Again, State refused.
Canada recognizes the People's Republic of China and still admits officials from Taiwan. The PRC doesn't protest.
Taiwan is America's sixth largest trading partner, but we treat our ``friend'' pretty shabbily. The PRC and the ROC have long held to the view that China is one nation and that Taiwan is a part of it. There is no evidence to suggest that President Lee has another agenda, though he obviously would prefer a unified free China to one dominated by Communists.
A New York Times editorial had it right: ``Having accepted the principle of Beijing's primacy, Washington is not obliged to cower when China throws a tantrum over the granting of a visa for a private visit.'' Exactly. If a one-year suspension of cultural relations was the best Beijing could do for a defector a decade ago, do we seriously think it would do worse for a visit to an alma mater by President Lee?
Perhaps if we acted like the supposed lone superpower in the world, other nations, including China, would start treating us like one.
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB