George,

Since the first days of George W. Bush’s administration, there was one single thing coming out of the White House that I could admire: Bush’s policy on China.

Early on, Bush played it cool to China, contrasted against the engagement with a communist, totalitarian regime that has marked every administration from Nixon onward. Bush even made a public statement promising that the US will come to Taiwan’s military defense in the event that China threatens them. This earned my grudging respect and lent the slightest bit of credibility when the President spoke of fighting for democracy elsewhere in the world.

This week it is ended. Bush walked away from Taiwan to get cozy with China. The typical result of a Bush promise.

I am disappointed with the Democratic Party’s lack of a consistent, moral stance on China. 30 years of engagement with China has turned a communist system into a feudal one in the truest sense of the word. Civil rights are not on the menu. China’s foreign and domestic policies consist of forcing everyone with an epicanthic fold to bow down and submit. China allows just enough economic freedom to .5% of their population to generate enormous profits for Communist party leaders on the backs of a billion serfs. Selling them Coca-Cola will not change that.

30 years of engagement with China has cost America millions of jobs and made a few industrialists fabulously wealthy. Our relationship with China may be good for the Bushes, the Walmarts and the Haliburtons of the world. But it is bad for Americans and bad for the average Chinese.

I see a lot of Democrats with ‘Free Tibet’ bumper stickers on their cars. But I don’t see that being translated into substantive action or a realistic political agenda. China will never voluntarily withdraw from Tibet. Tibet will be free if China’s economy collapses and local rebellions fracture the empire into a number of independent states. If you want that to happen, stop doing business with the enemy. Lobby for an end to trade with China and stop buying things that are made there. The pocket change that you are saving came out of an American’s paycheck. In fact, you’re probably spending that money through taxes toward unemployment benefits anyway.

Always remember that the path to freedom for Tibet begins in Taiwan. If Taiwan falls to mainland China, you can kiss Tibet goodbye. All hope of pushing back China’s expanding empire will be lost. Taiwan serves as a stalking horse for Tibetans and all other freedom-loving people under Chinese rule. Clamoring about freedom for Tibetans while towing the ‘one China’ line on Taiwan is a shameful hypocrisy. Taiwan is more like America than any other Asian nation. They have a government like ours, civil rights, capitalism and a melting pot culture where you or I would feel very much at home. Taiwan has done everything right. Everything that we, as a world power have been saying for the last 50 odd years. ‘Follow our ways and we will embrace you.’ That has been the real politick of our foreign policy and we should make good on it.

George Bush has, as usual, dropped the ball and proved himself not a champion but a charlatan of freedom. And like every other time that he has done something like this, he’s going to get away with it unless the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up and say that this is wrong and we will do things differently.

-Jackson Landers (electronic mail, December 10, 2003)