Around the newsdesk -- America and China
June 13, 1998 -- HONG KONG -- With just a couple of weeks to go before Bill Clinton arrives in Beijing, critics of the trip are making sure the newswires carry every single one of their utterances. To the 'Get Clinton' mob in Washington, this one is for you.
Republican Senator Tim Hutchinson (AK) declares: "To be received at the same site of the bloody massacre nine years ago undermines his whole message of human rights." Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Hutch, where were you when Clinton was driven down Rachadamnoen Avenue during his visit to Bangkok. D'ya know where that is, Hutch? Where were you when POTUS clutched the hand of Suharto during the past few APEC summits? Y'all ever heard of East Timor, huh, Hutch? East Timor is an occupied territory - ask your pal Newt, he knows all about illegally occupied territories. He recently visited one and virtually declared it sovereign territory of the occupying power. But then they do have 200-odd nukes that no one on Capitol Hill or the White House want to talk about.
Around the newsdesk we editors are always debating which allegation against China to run in our next bulletin. Okay, for the midday news we'll run the missiles pointed at U.S. cities, at 1pm we'll take the prison labour, at 2pm we'll go with the campaign contributions, at 3pm how about running technology transfers... it just goes on and on. To be honest, some of the accusations are credible - but when they are made by the same party that accused the Secretary of State of being a Palestinian agent - well, y'now, it sort of makes you think a little. Like, why are they doing it?
Y'know, if we'd just come out of a 30-year coma, we could be forgiven for thinking Clinton was the first president to engage the Chinese. But we ain't been in a coma, we're just sickened by the populist, domestic brownie-point winning hypocrisy of it all.
A day after hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives about forced abortions in China, Bill Clinton vowed to press President Jiang Zemin to improve human rights practices. Obviously representatives and POTUS were too busy with China's controversial family planning procedures to take a break and watch BBC World. If they had, they might have seen an interesting little feature about a small hamlet in a Third World country.
The hundred or so people who live there draw their water from an ancient, rusting hand-pump, outdoors and surrounded by weeds and trash. The outdoor toilets frequently back up and overflow, contaminating the shallow well that serves the hand-pump. No one ever takes a bath or a shower, there aren't any. They wash using water out of a bucket or basin. Those that could escape the crushing poverty and move elsewhere did so long ago, leaving behind the old, the mothers and the children. They have nowhere to go and they have seen their appeals for help fall on deaf ears.
One aid worker who has served in natural disaster areas all over the World said nothing prepared her for what she found in this hamlet of shacks and hopeless, vacant stares. Bayview, Virginia. About 200 miles from Washington. Did I say 'Third World'? Yes, and those were the words of the aid worker too.
If those Clinton/China critics really want to win a few domestic brownie-points, maybe they could donate about 1 percent of one year's campaign contributions to Bayview. Better still, how about 1 percent of the money being spent by Ken Starr on his presidential witch-hunt? That 1 percent probably would not make any significant difference to a Congressional or Senate campaign, or to the outcome of Starr's investigations, but it would make all the difference to a Third World village where people share toilets and have only seen a shower on the television or in the homes where they work as part-time domestic helpers.
The question begs, while places like Bayview exist, in a country so screwed up that members of white supremacist groups think it good sport to drag African Americans behind pick-up trucks, while 10-year old kids can walk into school with automatic weapons - what the blue blazes is the House of Representatives doing debating forced abortions in China? Okay, it is a serious issue, but haven't you got enough of your own? Get your priorities right, eh? Even the Religious Right must've heard about removing their own planks before having a go at someone else's splinter. Betcha the first woman president isn't a Southern Baptist - any takers?
The bottom line on this China deal has to be; Since ping-pong you folks in Washington have spent some 30 astoundingly two-faced, lying, hypocritical, underhand years conducting business (sometimes illegal and in breach of international protocols) with China (and so many other places it would be impossible to list). It isn't just since 1996, it isn't just Clinton. Screw with Beijing, and you are screwing with hundreds of thousands of American jobs. You are risking a destabilisation of the Asia-Pacific region. If you think the U.S. economy can handle it, go for it. For once it would be refreshing to see an administration willing to back up its rhetoric with action. If not, back off and deal with a few human rights abuses in your own back yard. I'll say it again, be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
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