THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507120016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Twenty years after the Vietnam War came to an end and six after the collapse of the Cold War, the United States will normalize relations with our former enemy. It's about time.
President Clinton needed some political courage to take this step, given the liability of his personal record on Vietnam. He was given cover by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Each served with honor in Vietnam. Both believe it is time to put the war behind us and put relations on a normal footing.
Some concerned about the MIA issue think normalization will delay a full accounting, but the Pentagon believes just the opposite. Sen. Bob Dole, Rep. Bob Dornan and other partisan strivers who are seeking Clinton's job can be expected to criticize him for the decision. But it really is time to move on. In the years ahead, friendly relations with Vietnam will be more useful to this country - economically, strategically and even psychologically - than hostile ones.
As long as the president is cleaning up leftover Cold War business, he might consider taking the advice of Speaker Newt Gingrich on a related matter. Gingrich argues that normal relations with Taiwan are also overdue.
The price of engaging China under President Nixon was the severing of diplomatic ties with the Republic of China. That unnatural state of affairs has continued to the present day, but it is a relic of the Cold War.
The Taiwan desk at the State Department defends the status quo, says no change in policy is contemplated and rather waspishly insists that ``the speaker doesn't make policy around here.''
Nevertheless, he makes a plausible case that the present situation does a disservice to a useful and powerful trading partner, ignores geopolitical reality and gives China an excuse to throw it's weight around whenever we sell Taiwan a plane or buy its products. Eventually we will have normal relations with both Chinas, but there's obviously no push for such a step at the moment. Maybe like the opening to China, normalizing relations with Taiwan will have to wait the arrival of a Republican president - or a new generations of leaders in China.
In the meantime, the Vietnam decision advances the process of establishing a post-Cold War web of relationships in the complex and economically vital region where being allied with Japan and lined up against China is obviously no longer a sufficient foreign policy. by CNB