Flawed US foreign policy

A Chinese friend, outraged over the “accidental” U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo, e-mailed the following missive to me the other day:

“My neighbor John abuses his son. So I burned his house, wounded his son, and killed his other neighbor Peter. I told Peter’s family, I’m ‘sorry.’ I will pray for him, but this is not my fault! It’s John to blame. If he does not do what I tell him to, I’ll kill you all. Justice is with me.”

To millions of Chinese around the world, that statement, in a nutshell, just about sums up America’s entire foreign policy in Kosovo today. The Chinese are angry; they view the United States as some sort of arrogant global human rights bully and hypocrite. To many Chinese nationals, the United States still represents an imperialist Western threat.

In the less developed world–China included–America is vilified and resented for its enormous economic success. However, in addition to good old-fashioned envy and resentment, deeply rooted historical influences also play a role, as the formerly colonized areas remember the old incursions of Western imperialism. (America is lumped in together with the Dutch and the British in Asia.)

The US, too, is suspicious of Asia, particularly China, the most heavily populated Communist country in the world. To be sure, in recent years, U.S.-China tensions have only heightened. Not only by the recent Kosovo bombings, but by the issues of trade, human rights, illegal campaign finance scandals, nuclear proliferation, Taiwan, CNMI garments, and so forth.

The Clinton administration must never forget that, unlike Kosovo, China is a nation of vital strategic importance to the United States. To save Kosovo–an area of no vital strategic interest to the United States–at the expense of alienating both China and Russia (nuclear powers all) is absolutely irresponsible, reckless, and downright appalling.

True, one could argue that the Chinese government is itself hypocritical, in that it goes berserk over the accidental deaths of four Chinese embassy employees, while callously ignoring its own mass murder of student protesters in Tinamen square back in 1989.

“If I deliberately punch my own son, it’s okay–but if you slap him by accident, I am going to kill you!”

At the same time, when the Chinese government cracked down on its Tinamen Square protesters, Uncle Sam certainly did not dream of dispatching bombers to Beijing. Which, in a way, makes America the bigger hypocrite.

Stop the bombing in Yugolsavia.