As China attempts to suppress mass protests, the Biden administration is treading carefully in its response -- a reflection of the possibility that a full-scale revolt against the Chinese Communist Party could leave the United States in a classic tug of war between its values and strategic interests.
Officials stressed that Washington strongly supports the right of people everywhere to peacefully demonstrate, but have not given any direct indication of support for the protests. Going further could imperil US President Joe Biden’s effort to improve relations between the two countries, after he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali.
It’s a strategically defensible position, given the need to avoid a clash with China that could spiral into a superpower clash in Asia. But if the protests spread and are brutally put down, Biden will face pressure from both hawks and human rights advocates to take a harder line -- and live up to his promise to put promoting democracy at the center of his foreign policy.
He is not the first president to face such a dilemma.
In the run-up to Beijing’s suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, then-President George H.W. Bush’s White House was preoccupied with preserving relations with Beijing. In retrospect, though, the administration badly underestimated the ruthlessness of Chinese leaders.
China is unrecognizable since 1989, and recent protests -- this time arising out of frustration with Covid-19 lockdowns but expressing some dissent towards Xi -- are not fully analogous. But Bush, who was a China expert after serving as top US envoy in Beijing at the dawn of the diplomatic relationship in the mid-1970s, faced the same questions Biden must answer now: How explicitly to speak about the situation in public? What messages -- if any -- to send in private to Beijing? And ultimately, when does the US instinct to stand up for values of freedom and democratic progress cede to more cynical economic and geopolitical interests?
These conundrums shine through a fascinating set of declassified documents that became public several years ago.
After Chinese soldiers crushed the rebellion in Tiananmen Square, with estimates of the death toll ranging from hundreds to thousands, Bush deplored the use of force and called on Chinese leaders for restraint. But he also stressed that he didn’t want the aftermath of the horror to “break” US-China relations.
However, behind the scenes, there was a real debate about the efficacy of US policy. In a secret cable to Washington, then-US ambassador James Lilley argued that Washington’s overarching goal had blinded it to the real nature of the Chinese regime. “The Chinese declared martial law against their own people in Beijing the day we were cozying up to their military in Shanghai,” Lilley wrote, referring to a US naval visit to the eastern Chinese city. “We were not coping with or anticipating current realities.”
Lilley was not just being wise after the fact. He had warned in a cable in May -- the month prior to the Tiananmen Square massacre -- that the Chinese military was “ready to strike” against the students and that the US should “distance ourselves from the Chinese authorities who appear to be getting ready to crack down on their own people.”
