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John Suarez. FREE CUBA
Foundation. July, 2002.
President Carter normalized relations between Washington and Beijing in
1979. The conventional belief then with regards to the Soviet Union and China,
as with Cuba now, was that normal relations would lead to a greater opening for
human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy. The opposite has been the
case. In the Soviet Union confrontation and economic isolation led to a peaceful
implosion of the regime. In China the policy of trade and political engagement
has led to a thriving economic system under Communist party control and
modernization and expansion of both the military and police state to continue
repressing the Chinese people.
Ronald Reagan defined the Soviet Union as the "focus of evil in the
modern world" and engaged in a combined policy of military confrontation
and economic isolation denounced at the time by academics, journalists and
future policy makers as delusional. For example, Clinton’s future Deputy
Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott then a Time reporter counseled Reagan to, "adopt
a realistic trade policy." According to Talbott, "though Reagan has
learned not to say so out loud, associates say he still believes that the
U.S.S.R. could be badly damaged, and forced to cut back on its military buildup,
if the West cut it off from trade contacts. That is a delusion."
Ronald Reagan did not follow Mr. Talbott’s advice and less than eight
years later the USSR peacefully imploded. Freedom was brought to the former
Soviet Union and liberation to the captive nations of the Warsaw Pact.
Unfortunately, Reagan followed the conventional wisdom in China.
The events of June 1989 when thousands of students were butchered by Chinese
troops for peacefully demonstrating for democracy, human rights, and an end to
government corruption dramatically revealed the failure of the policy of
engagement. Surprisingly, economic engagement with the butchers of Beijing was
not even suspended but intensified. Twelve years have passed since the
Tiananmen Square massacre but according to Amnesty International, China
continues its systemic suppression of dissent, which includes arbitrary
arrests, torture, unfair trials, religious repression, and executions."
Amnesty International described the price Chinese citizens are paying, one
of them Zhou Jianxiong. Zhou, an agricultural worker, was tortured to death by
officials from the township birth control office to make him reveal the
whereabouts of his wife, suspected of being pregnant without permission. He was
hung upside down, repeatedly whipped and beaten with wooden clubs, burned with
cigarette butts, branded with soldering irons, and had his genitals ripped off.
The result of engagement with China has not been the transformation of the
Chinese dictatorship to democracy. Amnesty International’s 2001report
states that, "thousands of people were arbitrarily detained for peacefully
exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association or religion. Some
were sentenced to long prison terms after unfair trials under national security
legislation; others were detained without trial and assigned to up to three
years' 're-education through labor'. Torture and ill treatment of prisoners
continued to be widespread. The limited and incomplete records available showed
that at least 1,511 people were sentenced to death and 1,000 executed; the true
figures were believed to be far higher."
Nevertheless former President Carter argues that, "the best way to keep
China increasingly open to worship—and trade, commerce, and political
change—is by them being in relationship with the outside world,"
advocating the same for the Castro dictatorship, "we shouldn't isolate Cuba
but allow free trade, commerce, and visitation back and forth. That's the best
way to break down totalitarianism." When Carter advocates for "free
trade" and "commerce," he’s actually advocating for
taxpayer-subsidized trade.
Congressman Ron Paul describes how US taxpayers subsidize the Chinese
dictatorship, "China, for instance, receives the largest amount of money
from the Export-Import Bank. Outstanding liabilities for the Export-Import Bank
are now $55 billion. There is $5.9 billion that has been granted to the Chinese."
According to Congressman Paul, China has used Export-Import funds to build
nuclear power plants, expand its state-run airline, and even build steel
factories that compete directly with our own struggling domestic steel
industry. These areas of the economy subsidized by the US taxpayer are also
elements being used for the modernization of the Chinese military and
maintaining the apparatus of repression. Castro is broke. Subsidized trade is
what the majority of the anti-embargo lobby is after.
President Bush spoke the truth when he argued for maintaining sanctions on
the Cuban dictatorship, "I know what trade means with a tyrant. It means
that we will underwrite tyranny, and we cannot let that happen." We’ve
been doing that since 1979 in China and have the blood of thousands of Chinese
citizens on our hands. We should not trade with tyrants in Havana or with
tyrants in Beijing, because in doing so we become co-conspirators in a crime
against humanity, and subsidize those who would do us harm.
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten
your aim.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it / George
Santayana (1863 - 1962) |
