From the WSJ Opinion Archives
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
A New China Crisis
President Bush must act now on behalf of jailed scholars.
It is time to stop talking in dainty terms about "the detained scholars" and to start dealing in blunt truth: The U.S. is in the midst of a new China crisis.
Unlike the crash-landing of a U.S. surveillance plane on Chinese turf in April--spectacular, but swiftly resolved--this crisis has crept up on us over the past half year, and is far from done. One after another, stories have surfaced of U.S.-based scholars jailed in China. Two are U.S. citizens: Li Shaomin and Wu Jianmin. Two are U.S. permanent residents: Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang. All have vanished into the murk of China's Ministry of State Security. In custody, they are [TEXT]cut off from contact with their families and denied access to lawyers, while China conducts secret investigations into their alleged "espionage."
Whatever quiet diplomacy President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have been carrying out to help these scholars, it's been so tranquil it's not working. Ms. Gao, a U.S. resident hustled out of Beijing airport by China's secret police on Feb. 11, has not been heard from since.
Mr. Li, a U.S. citizen detained as he crossed into China on Feb. 25, has had his entire contact with the outside world restricted to one visit per month from a U.S. consular official. A few weeks ago, China's authorities said Mr. Li had "confessed." Because China routinely tortures prisoners, this raises the disturbing question of what his jailers have done to obtain this "confession." On Monday, Mr. Li was formally indicted on charges of spying for Taiwan. This is getting urgent. He could soon face what China's authorities will describe as a "trial." The penalties range from many years in prison to execution.
In other words, it is almost certain that the fate of Mr. Li, along with that of the other prisoners, rests directly in the hands of President Jiang Zemin, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and their fellow party bosses. That's important to know in watching the U.S.-China pattern now emerging--which is that Beijing's regime brutalizes our people, humiliates the U.S. and pays no price. In letting this continue, the U.S. undercuts its own credibility as leader of anything at all--let alone the free world. We invite further abuse of our citizens abroad, and disrespect for our own integrity, not only from China, but from other wayward nations.
Especially diabolical is that China keeps muttering about these scholars working as "spies" for Taiwan. This shields Beijing from direct confrontation with the U.S. It plants just enough doubt so that Washington is likely to be overprudent in its rescue attempts.
To compound the problem, there is no simple guide to prying prisoners out of China's jails. Mr. Li's wife, Liu Yingli, has been trying desperately for months to find a lever that will work: visiting members of Congress, giving one painful interview after another to the press, hoping with each fresh petition circulated among the academic community that this might do the trick. Ms. Gao's husband, Xue Donghua, has also been jumping through hoops, trying to obtain legislation that would grant his wife full U.S. citizenship in absentia, sending a letter to Mr. Bush, pinning his hopes on a lawyer seasoned in China issues, who went from New York to Beijing only to be completely stonewalled.
The tragedy of these families, and the growing concern in Congress over this new sinkhole in U.S.-China relations, led to a hearing on Tuesday before the House International Relations Committee. Both Ms. Liu and Mr. Xue testified, along with experts who made clear that little is being done to help them.
Even if Mr. Bush supplies the resolve so far missing, there's plenty of debate over what might work, and what might backfire. America cannot afford to bluff. President Clinton paved the way for the problem by talking big about human rights, but on material matters giving China a pass every time--including his 1998 trip to China, in which he read straight from Beijing's script on the downgrading of U.S. support for Taiwan.
We're paying for that now. Back in May, Mr. Bush noted that "we have expressed our concerns" to China, "sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't." An obvious first move would be for Mr. Bush, after weeks of silence on the scholars, to raise his voice. Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.) has introduced a bill in the House calling on the president to send a special envoy to Beijing immediately to "reiterate deep concern." Witnesses at Tuesday's hearing also suggested that Mr. Bush (who has yet to show the courtesy of answering a letter from Mr. Li's nine-year-old daughter, Diana, asking his help to "rescue my daddy") might invite the families of the detained scholars for a photo-op at the White House--sending China a vivid message.
A former U.S. ambassador in North Asia says none of that will be enough, and that it's too easy for Beijing to tune out. He sums up the technique that has yielded results from Beijing in the past: "You've got to administer pain. That takes a lot of will, and it takes a lot of talent."
Rep. Henry Hyde (R., Ill.), who chaired Tuesday's hearing, wondered if these arrests are all about China posing "some kind of test for the new U.S. administration." Another, equally credible explanation is that China's actions are driven less by foreign policy than by the desire of China's brittle regime to eke out a few more years by scaring away or shutting up liberal thinkers.
By now it matters less why China's rulers are jailing our academics than that they feel free to do so. For Mr. Bush, it is time to stop hoping this challenge to America's most basic values will just go away. It won't. He must focus on solving it.
Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."
