Over the past two decades, the CCP’s foreign propaganda has been advancing step by step and layer by layer, gradually controlling almost all Chinese-language media in Western countries. (Reuters file photo) – Radio Free Asia

[Note: Punishing Boeing with “Airbus” is a repeat of the CCP’s old trick. This reminds me of a book, I know there are people in the West who understand it. This is an English book from 24 years ago, The Coming Conflict with China, Chinese translation is “The Coming Sino-US Conflict”, the authors Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro are journalists who have been stationed in Beijing. The book mentions: “The Chinese authorities have always tempted the American business community with profits, while making threats at the same time… Premier Li Peng punished Boeing in 1996, canceled the commitment to buy Boeing aircraft, and replaced it with European Airbus. The company purchased aircraft worth $1.5 billion. He was very blatant about his reasons for doing so, because European leaders were “cooperating with China without political strings attached, while the Americans were arbitrarily threatening to sanction us.” The time gap between the two events, at least told None of us, the CCP, and the West have made any progress, and the world is basically spinning. I analyzed this trick more than 20 years ago and left a post. 】

The author once mentioned in 1995 that the CCP’s tough stance in the situation in the Taiwan Strait has increasingly revealed the basic changes in its foreign policy that have gradually emerged: since 1989, the prudence of “keeping a low profile” and “not taking the lead” Come out of the defense, control and manipulate the Asia-Pacific affairs with an offensive stance. This change is an instinctive reaction of the CCP after confirming that it has successfully dealt with the changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as the resolution of Western sanctions led by the United States.

This change in the “international environment” not only resolved the ruling crisis caused by the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, but also resolved the power vacuum crisis brought about by the death of Deng Xiaoping. Jiang Zemin’s ability to sit still is largely not because of “stability” within the mainland, but because the international environment has never been more favorable to the CCP.

However, Western think tanks, especially the U.S. government, and the political analysis of the Chinese mainland as a reference for U.S. foreign policy, have always used the “words and actions” of the CCP leaders as “short-term predictions”, and no strategists have been seen since 1989. Remind the White House to pay attention to Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of “hide its strengths and bide its time”, and they have not seen them see through the CCP’s temptation of market interests and force the West to make concessions. Only recently did the press have a sober vision to expose the CCP’s “political donations” scandal. One of these books systematically sorts out the context of the CCP’s diplomacy with the U.S. step-by-step, which is of great policy value. The book is “The Coming Conflict with China” by Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, both journalists who have been stationed in Beijing. This article intends to refer to their research to make some analysis on the CCP’s diplomatic strategy in three aspects: dividing the West, influencing public opinion, and bribing politicians.

Dividing the west

Looking at it now, the CCP’s diplomacy with the United States after the “June 4th” was not purely passive from the very beginning, but sought to influence public opinion and government decision-making in the United States, and had its own unique approach. The author of The Coming Conflict with China argues that the CCP “went from the reckless attempt to influence U.S. actions, the vicious indignation that it vented upon hearing dissent, to its Pervasive activities in the United States, not only the propaganda, threats and intimidation that accompany private lobbying, but also the purchase or theft of technology for transfer to China.” They also pointed out that “the U.S. government and the public are concerned about China issues. All kinds of debates have been dominated by a very influential group of former senior US officials, and the people of this group have made huge profits by promoting their advocated China policy.” “The CCP is used to waging economic warfare. Threats and attempts to change U.S. national policy in this way are rare in the history of U.S. foreign relations.”

Looking back, the success of breaking the Western sanctions against China after the June 4th Movement is a valuable piece of China’s diplomatic history, and it can be listed as a topic of American political research on China. The highest principles that dominated the CCP’s foreign policy during this period were the two policies proposed by Deng Xiaoping regarding the “June 4th” incident and the subsequent great changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: “Hide one’s strengths and bide his time” and “never take the lead.” Be sharp and not be the “early bird” in order to gain a chance to breathe. Those who are a little familiar with Chinese history will think of things like Jujian, the king of Yue, who “tested the courage”, Han Xin’s “humiliation under the crotch”, and even the more recent Lin Biao’s “hide-and-seek plan” against Mao Zedong. Is it possible to use modern political science to study this kind of traditional Chinese “bachelor” power tactics with a long history? I don’t know what kind of “analytical mode” it falls into, which the China experts in the US are good at.

But after all, we can find strong traces of such power tactics in the CCP’s foreign policy. For example, in the report “On the International Situation” issued by the CCP’s Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in September 1992, he specifically talked about “breaking Western sanctions”. The first step was to not use the veto power in the UN Security Council during the Gulf crisis, which has done the United States a favor. Qian Qichen described it this way: “I cleverly used the United States to ask me for help on the Gulf issue. , at the end of last year (1990), the official visit of the foreign minister to the United States was realized, and he met with President Bush, breaking the US ban on the exchange of visits between ministerial officials of the two countries, which is a breakthrough in Sino-US relations. The solution is to persuade the United States to no longer insist on the unanimous position of Western countries to maintain sanctions on World Bank loans to China, which received 700 million yuan that year. They call this “differentiation and disintegration.” They “make full use of the contradictions between Western countries and the contradictions within the American ruling collective.” They also make use of the contradictions between the United States and Japan to make Japan the first to give up sanctions and the first to invest. , given full discounts, so that major Western consortiums and companies stomped their feet in a hurry, and naturally they will lobby Congress. At this time, China organized a purchasing group to the United States and signed a contract worth 1.2 billion at a time.

Americans are now finally seeing the far-reaching significance of the CCP’s “punishment of Boeing” back then. The Coming Conflict with China wrote: “The CCP authorities have always tempted the American business community with profits, while making threats… Premier Li Peng punished Boeing in 1996, canceled the commitment to buy Boeing aircraft, and replaced it with European Airbus. The company bought $1.5 billion worth of aircraft. He was very explicit about his reasons for doing so, as European leaders ‘cooperate with China without political strings attached, while the Americans arbitrarily threaten to sanction us.’ But the irony is that it is the Chinese government itself that is playing with the weapon of trade sanctions. Sometimes it promises economic benefits, sometimes it threatens economic punishment, and puts pressure on the US government… The reason why China’s US policy is so obvious The result is precisely because the Chinese government ties the economy and politics together, and uses economic inducements and punishments to seek political concessions from the United States.” Winston Lord, the outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs of the US Department of State, said very discouraged. “One of our biggest problems with China is that when we deal with the CCP, our allies in Europe and Japan are holding us back and taking contracts away.” Today, this tactic has further instigated French Anti-American sentiment, the recent trip to Beijing by French President Chirac, not only signed a contract of 1.2 billion, but also condemned “American hegemony” with the CCP. This kind of “cooperation” between China and France is nothing more than a replica of the cooperation between Charles de Gaulle and Mao Zedong during the Cold War era, but it is worth considering that in 1990 Qian Qichen proposed “disintegration and disintegration” and “make full use of the contradictions between Western countries and the United States. Contradictions within the ruling collective” strategy began to “pay results” after seven years.

Controlling Western China Watchers

Influencing Western public opinion through Western left-leaning intellectuals is another level of the CCP’s differentiation towards the West, and it is also an old-fashioned way of the CCP’s international united front. In the 1950s and 1960s, China allowed only a small number of foreign journalists and writers to enter China. These people were called “friends of China” by China, in other words, foreigners willing to promote China’s communist revolution. Among them, the famous one is the Swiss writer Han Suyin, and the other is the American journalist Edgar Snow. During the “Cultural Revolution” era when only very few Americans were allowed to go to China, he was able to go to Zhongnanhai and enter Mao Zedong to meet foreign dignitaries. Talk to Mao Chang in the living room. Some foreigners also belong to this category, such as American journalist Anna Louise Strong, New Zealand writer Len Alley, and Australian Communist Party member Wilfred Burchett. With very few exceptions, the vast majority of these people were able to enter China because of their “friends” status. And as long as they tell the truth to the outside world, such as revealing the upper-level power struggle, the personal cult of Mao Zedong, or the economic disaster caused by Mao’s policies, they will be regarded by the CCP as “unfriendly” and their “friends” Identity is easily revoked.

However, since the global disintegration of communism, the left-leaning trend of thought in the West has also been stagnant. The CCP’s control of Western public opinion requires a different approach. It has begun to use various tricks to create a small group of new “friends of China”. The methods are visas to China, permits to travel to various places, and access to Zhongnanhai to meet leaders. privileges, etc. However, the effect may not be sufficient. The basic tone of Western public opinion towards the CCP is still mostly negative. Therefore, the CCP has begun to adopt a new set of practices, which is called “killing chickens to warn the monkeys.” The first person to be “treated” was Andrew Nathan, a professor at Columbia University. Because he wrote a preface to a memoir written by Mao Zedong’s personal doctor, Li Zhisui, the CCP banned him from entering mainland China. For scholars whose main research object is politics, it is naturally a loss. Next, American scholars and writers who have publicly criticized the CCP for human rights violations were either refused visas to visit China, or were asked to participate in a campaign seeking prominent Americans to support CCP policies in exchange for visas to visit China. Orville Schell (Chinese name Xia Wei), a well-known freelance writer focusing on mainland China, who has published several books on China, has not been able to get a visa since the early 1990s because of his involvement in activities of Human Rights Watch. Perry Link, a professor in the East Asia Department of Princeton University, was able to get a valid visa to enter China almost every year after the June 4th, but in August 1996, he was refused entry by customs at Beijing Capital Airport and kept him in a hotel. He was detained overnight and sent back to Hong Kong the next morning. Lin Perry later said that when he was detained in the hotel, four public security bureau officials were on duty in the room to guard him, and they also cut off the phone in the room.

The practice of “killing the chicken to warn the monkey” is actually not a new one. It was tried in 1972 by the Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni. He was a member of the Italian Communist Party and was allowed to go to China to make a documentary film. It was discovered that the film (China Is Near) did not highlight the “revolutionary image” of the Chinese people, but truthfully reflected the life of the common people, and set off a months-long propaganda campaign criticizing Antonioni. Edgar Snow also made a film during his visit to China in the 1970s, but he took the opposite approach to Antonioni, he only filmed the “heroic deeds” of building the Yangtze River Bridge, which guaranteed his next time You can also get a visa to visit China. The book  cites Schell’s analysis, arguing that, overall, the CCP has been quite successful in trying to control foreign China observers. The intimidation created by China has indeed made many foreign scholars and journalists speak cautiously, fearful of being “persona non grata” by the CCP. Schell said that this is actually well-known to Western China experts, the CCP’s approach to its own intellectuals, a threat of political exclusion that is not only effective within China, but also has strong implications for foreign journalists and scholars. The effect, because these people need to go to China in order to keep their current careers related to China, so they are dependent on the CCP.

The Coming Conflict with China also pointed out that there is a small group of China experts in the United States who avoid “offending” the CCP and still have the opportunity to contact high-level CCP officials. They provide advice on a local basis, “escort” major American companies or political celebrities’ trips to China, publish academic analysis on Chinese politics, and act as a political apologist for the CCP. However, what these American academic elites on China are facing is a Chinese government that excludes not only their own dissidents, but also foreign critics. As long as these American scholars offend the Chinese government on certain issues, they go to China for investigation and research. Their way is blocked, and their academic careers will end. Those American political scientists who maintain a good channel of contact with the CCP official, through these contacts, can also understand how the CCP leaders think about problems. This knowledge is indeed quite useful; the articles they publish about Chinese politics are of reference value. But on some issues, such as Mao Zedong’s reputation, human rights, the CCP’s military intimidation of Taiwan, and China’s control of Tibet, the Beijing authorities are watching closely, and these scholars have to either say something flattering, or simply say nothing. Don’t say anything.

Buying American politicians

“The Coming Conflict with China” believes that compared with the above-mentioned CCP’s comprehensive implementation of both soft and hard in the field of Western academia or journalism, it is simply a blatant bribe in business activities.

By manipulating the license of foreign businessmen to enter the Chinese market, the CCP influences the U.S. policy toward China, which is quite effective. The most typical of these is to use those who are most likely to benefit greatly from the U.S. policy of accommodating the CCP, and spare no effort to promote the accommodating policy of the CCP among the U.S. government and the public, and the most striking of them is the former Secretary of State Henry Kissing Herry Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig Jr., as well as former Deputy Secretary of State Laurence Eagleburger and former National Security Advisor Scowcroft, among others. They are a group of such “consultants”, and if a Kissinger wants to win a contract for his client (the chairman of a major American company) in a competition in the Chinese market, then according to the Chinese requirements, this The condition of the transaction is that the company must publicly defend China’s interests in the United States, or arrange for a US congressman or a press corps to visit China; American company executives can also get to know senior Chinese officials through this “consultant”. Pay the “consultant” to publicly support policy proposals in the United States to please Beijing in order to solidify his personal ties with Chinese officials. This arrangement is never explicitly written in a commercial contract, but everyone understands the deal.

Kissinger is famous for defending the CCP’s 1989 Tiananmen massacre. On the second day of the massacre, he simultaneously published op-eds in several newspapers, calling Deng Xiaoping “one of the great reformers in Chinese history” and saying that Deng “chosen for China a more benevolent and less chaotic one.” process”. While Congress is calling for sanctions and the Bush administration is preparing to take measures to a certain extent, Kissinger said in an interview with Peter Jennings, a prominent evening news anchor on ABC, “I am No sanctions will be advocated,” and “no government in the world will tolerate demonstrators occupying the capital’s main square for eight weeks,” an occupation that has led to disorder and chaos, making repression “inevitable.” In November 1989, he accompanied a business delegation to China and met Deng Xiaoping and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen. Qian praised him greatly. After returning to the United States, he reported a conversation with senior leaders of the CCP at the White House. Kissinger visits China several times a year, and China’s door is always open to him.

Kissinger has always avoided the question of how much profit he can make from the China policy he preaches. Kissinger’s firm, Kissinger Associates, represents a number of companies seeking business opportunities in China that pay Kissinger large sums of money. In 1989, when he made those remarks in defense of the CCP, he formed a limited partnership called China Ventures to invest in China as a joint venture with China International Trust and Investment Corporation, run by his old acquaintance Rong Yiren. Scott. Thompson of the National Democratic Policy Committee pointed out in his remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Kissinger does receive substantial compensation from companies that have investments in China.

The Coming Conflict with China argues that, apparently, with the help of former senior U.S. officials like Kissinger, a new and powerful lobbying group for China has emerged in the U.S. that is reluctant to criticize Beijing’s human rights record and opposes “Confronting” or sanctioning China, and making considerable profits by doing so. The point of this question is not that Kissinger should not help American companies, or to question the motives of American companies to invest in China. What is questionable is the dual role played by people like Kissinger and Hague, who use their own Fame and influence drive U.S. policy, either publicly or privately, and then personally profit from it.

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