Vice President Richard Cheney’s week-long trip to Asia offered a host of complicated challenges. In Japan, he had to reassure a reliable ally to stay the course against terrorism despite Japanese being taken hostage in Iraq. In South Korea, he had to deal with the developing threat of a nuclear North Korea. There are too many issues with China to list. In each hot spot, Mr. Cheney asserted unpopular U.S. policies without backing down. He was the most direct in the Middle Kingdom.
While the vice president was in Asia, Beijing criticized Washington’s military sales to Taipei for encouraging Taiwan’s impure thoughts of officially declaring its independence. Nothing gets Chinese Communists angrier than their lack of control of Taiwan. For this reason, U.S. leaders usually are overcautious when the discussion arises with mainland officials. In the past, the Bush administration has sent mixed signals, and some high-level advisors even flirted with the idea of weakening America’s commitment to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression. In a speech at Fudan University in Shanghai, Mr. Cheney reiterated the U.S. obligation to help Taiwan defend itself and made clear that weapons sales would continue.
Perhaps the most significant reflection of Mr. Cheney’s prestige in China was the fact that his controversial and tough speech in Shanghai was run nationwide on state television without delays or censorship edits — a rarity in the tightly controlled totalitarian state. That provided an historic platform to speak to the Chinese public, which the vice president used to push the cause of freedom for the Chinese. While applauding economic progress in the People’s Republic over the past three decades, he stated, “Freedom is not divisible. If people can be trusted to invest and manage material assets, they will eventually ask why they cannot be trusted with decisions over what to say and what to believe.” In a direct shot at the Communist leadership that was hosting him, Mr. Cheney said, “Material goods alone cannot satisfy the deepest yearnings of the human heart. That can only come with full freedom of religion, speech, assembly and conscience.”
Mr. Cheney’s advice to the Red Chinese ran the gamut of issues. He made clear that greater trade with the world also carried “a responsibility to lower barriers to imports, to protect intellectual property rights and to maintain flexible market-driven exchange rates.” He said that human-rights abuses had to be curtailed. He criticized Beijing for not doing enough to convince its North Korean ally to halt its nuclear-weapons programs. That is a point the Bush administration could make to China more often.
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