Ronald Reagan had an enemy. Not just a geopolitical rival or some two-bit punk in the Balkans, but an "Evil Empire" that once threatened to bury America, and continued to confront its strategic interests in every corner of the globe. And like every postwar president before him, Reagan made staring down that enemy the organizing principle of his tenure.
Who are we without an enemy?
But the Soviets' defeat left Reagan's heirs with a problem. America is notoriously difficult to govern in the absence of an enemy at the gates — just ask Bill Clinton. Moreover, for a generation of conservative Republican securocrats, the very basis of their power and influence in any presidential administration was their expertise in organizing government for warfare, hot or cold. But without the Soviets, where was the ur-threat? How could the U.S. determine its security and foreign policy priorities in the absence of a "clear and present" danger? Indeed, just what is America if it has no nemesis against which to define itself?
The Clinton administration had Saddam and Milosevic, but Americans weren't going to be losing any sleep over those two. And the only falling dominoes the Clintonites were really concerned about were the shaky Third World currencies and markets in which various U.S. hedge funds and brokerages were overexposed. The Bush team needs something a little more robust.
Can an 'Evil Empire' supply a Magic Kingdom's tchotchkes?
Enter China, the hidden dragon crouching in wait, biding its time, stealing America's atomic secrets while posing as the provider of sneakers and sweaters and kiddie-movie merchandise distributed by fast-food chains. That same China is now the major strategic challenger confronting America, according to a leaked account of last week's briefing of President Bush by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Leaving behind outmoded thinking about preparing for tank battles on the plains of Europe or fighting 2.5 "brush fire" wars around the globe at any one point, Rumsfeld wants to rebuild the U.S. military around a focus on the Pacific theater, where its mission would be to stand up to any Chinese imperial ambitions.
This is new territory for the President. Bush talked tough on China on the campaign trail, but bashing the incumbent's China policy is a campaign mainstay these days. Even Bush the Elder hadn't allowed the Tiananmen Square massacre to significantly alter a strategic relationship forged by mutual hostility toward the Soviet Union and enriched by burgeoning business ties.
Taiwan forces the issue
But the hawks in the new Bush administration clearly want to take campaign-trail rhetoric a little further. And the first test of their influence may come in the decision the President must make next month over whether to sell Taiwan Aegis-class destroyers equipped with a sophisticated anti-missile warfare platform. Beijing is warning that the sale would create a crisis in the Taiwan Strait, but many administration aides believe that's a problem of Beijing's making. The hawks say close the deal; the doves say find a face-saving formula that allows Beijing to back down, such as supplying Taiwan's defense needs but stopping short of the Aegis (at least for now). The President's decision may shape relations with Beijing for the duration of his presidency.
The Aegis sale, of course, is only part of the problem. China sees it as a prelude to including Taiwan under some form of a U.S. missile shield, which they've vowed to prevent. And that puts National Missile Defense (NMD) in the spotlight, too. While Washington is at least able to make the case that a limited system designed to keep out missiles fired by "rogue" states wouldn't negate Russia's nuclear capability, in the case of China there's no question — even the limited version weighed by the Clinton administration would necessarily neutralize Beijing's small nuclear arsenal. The Chinese believe this is the purpose of NMD, and they'll take Rumsfeld's strategic reorientation as further evidence.
Self-fulfilling prophecy?
There's a real danger, of course, that attaching a rising sense of menace to Beijing could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, Washington has since the Nixon years maintained the delicate dance of the "One China" policy, which sees Taiwan and the mainland as part of the same entity, while at the same time vowing to defend the island against any attempt to reincorporate it by force. Some analysts fear that if the U.S. makes Taiwan's defenses too robust, that might prompt the island to declare formal independence — which would very probably precipitate a war.
But it's not only stability-minded doves that will restrain the administration's China hawks. Being hawkish on national security is an article of faith for conservative Republicans, but so is being bullish on business. And for two decades now, China Inc. has been open for business, growing steadily into a lucrative market and source of low-cost manufacturing for U.S. industry. President Clinton may have erred in characterizing China as a U.S. partner, but only in his choice of adjective — it may not be the "strategic partner" Clinton termed it, but there's no question that Beijing is a U.S. business partner. Business-oriented Republicans and Democrats have consistently united to block attempts to disrupt the U.S.-China business relationship on ideological or political grounds. And it may be safe to assume that many business-oriented GOP leaders won't be entirely happy with casting China as the primary menace on the U.S. strategic horizon.
In that sense, Ronald Reagan had it a lot easier. After all, back in the '80s no American corporations were outsourcing their manufacturing to Magnitorgorsk, and you couldn't get a Big Mac within a thousand miles of Moscow.