Let’s Haul China Before The U.N.

By lobbing missiles into the waters off Taiwan, China committed open, deliberate international terrorism of enormous danger.

Americans count on Beijing’s survival instincts to stop the terrorism short of the disaster of war with the United States.

That may happen - this time.

But every day that Washington fails to bring the missile blackmail and blockade of Taiwan before the United Nations increases the chances that this - or something worse - will happen again until the disaster indeed does take place.

The communists’ rage and fear at the example of Taiwan’s democracy off their shores will not let them rest unless the Taiwanese give it up.

And that is not likely. If any pro-democracy majority is elected in next Wednesday’s voting in Taiwan, there will be another round of terrorism before long.

That may include some Chinese military landings on Taiwan. U.S. vessels would have to move in to live up to American word and legislation that the Taiwan-China relationship will not be changed by force.

So far, the United States has had to act alone. The Japanese do not have the political courage to make any strong public protest against the Chinese terrorism. I have not heard our European allies warn the Chinese that if it comes to it, they immediately will line up with the United States.

U.S. failure to bring the Chinese before the United Nations would destroy a basic purpose of the United Nations. It was not created simply to end wars but also to stop them before they begin. Article 34 of its charter authorizes the Security Council to take up any matter that might lead to “international friction or dispute.”

Any member of the United Nations - or the secretary-general - can bring a threat to peace before the council. And China’s veto power cannot be used to prevent putting a threat to peace on the council’s agenda.

Separately, the United States and any other country that considers itself a friend both of peace and America can condemn Chinese terrorism. Together, they can present a resolution speaking for the United Nations.

China would veto that. But if Beijing is so out of control as to carry out a second round of terrorism in the face of a U.N. condemnation which was prevented only by a Chinese veto, we should know it now.

Meantime, President Clinton should consider one sentence that tells how his administration got to this point.

“The experience of China in the past few years demonstrates that while economic growth, trade and social mobility create an improved standard of living, they cannot by themselves bring about greater respect for human rights in the absence of a willingness by political authorities to abide by fundamental international norms.”

That sentence in itself is not remarkable. It sums up the message of human rights victims around the world: Strengthening our oppressors empowers them to torture us further.

But it comes from the latest report on human rights by the U.S. State Department. It took courage by those officials who wrote or agreed to it.

Since 1993, the Clinton administration has based its China policy on a contrary vision of morality and history. It has insisted that economic growth in China would create a willingness by the dictatorship to live up to those “fundamental international norms.” Beijing would give the Chinese more human rights. It would stick to agreements against selling nuclear weapons technology. It would allow the people of territories it claims as its own, such as Tibet and Taiwan, to live in peace and dignity.

China’s economy certainly has grown, stimulated nicely by $40 billion more that it sells to the United States than it buys from us.

Instead, torture and political repression have increased. And so have oppression of religion and forced abortion. The choke-leash around Tibet is tightening. The chief economic beneficiary of the trade that led to economic growth has been the communist army, which owns vast parts of the economy, including the forced-labor camps.

The new, richer China has sold nuclear technology to Pakistan and has become the missile salesman to the world’s dictatorships.

Clinton promised to struggle for human rights in China. He did not.

Now, his China policy lies adrift in the Strait of Taiwan.

He owes us a new one. Its moral principle and historic reality were written for him by the meaning of that sentence in the State Department report: Enrichment of dictators enchains their victims.

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