Trade With China

* Richard G. Capen Jr.’s “We’re Already Playing Catch-Up in China” (Commentary, Nov. 14) reminded me of my former students from Beijing University (Beida) who were murdered in Tian An Men Square, sent to Chinese labor camps, or imprisoned--many still rotting away in Chinese jails or languishing at “re-education” centers in the countryside.

Their ongoing struggle to fulfill the promise of democracy in China cannot possibly be reduced to glib laments about American businesses “playing catch-up” with other foreign investors in China’s “huge, relatively untapped market.” What’s good for U.S. business is not always good for the cause of democratization abroad. This is especially the case in China where foreign and U.S. investors have seemingly been more committed to the stability of the Chinese regime than they have to democratization.

Notwithstanding the economic progress some parts of China seem to be making, there is no credible evidence that the Chinese government is any less repressive today than it was four years ago when it sent hundreds of tanks and thousands of PLA soldiers into the heart of Beijing to quash the pro-democracy movement. Since then the Chinese regime has been regularly persecuting, jailing, and executing dissidents, especially those involved in the pro-democracy movement.

Of course Chinese foreign ministers, such as Liu Huaqiu, are going to tell visiting U.S. businessmen and officials that their “government has heard our message.” The Chinese want U.S. investment and more importantly, hard U.S. currency. But there is no evidence beyond rhetoric that a lesson has been learned about human rights by Beijing’s dictators.

Tragically, Deng Xiaoping was right when he predicted on April 25, 1989, that China had nothing to fear from the world community if it crushed the pro-democracy movement. Capen’s advice to President Clinton confirms the accuracy of Deng’s audacious prediction and counsels capitulation by the United State to the terror of Chinese totalitarianism. Nothing could be worse for the cause of democratic reform in China.

MARK P. PETRACCA

Associate Professor, UC Irvine

The writer was a visiting professor in the Department of International Politics, Beijing University, 1987.