Radio Free Asia, Not Trade Sanctions : China: Stunting its economy is bad for human rights--and America’s interests.

The Clinton Administration’s China-policy debacle might have been averted had the President made good on his campaign pledge to launch Radio Free Asia. When the Iron Curtain was lifted, we learned from Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and countless citizens of Eastern Europe that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty had been more effective than we knew. By providing listeners with a steady flow of independent reports about their countries, these stations weakened rulers, heartened dissidents and paved the way for the transition from dictatorship to pluralism.

In 1992, a presidential/congressional commission recommended establishing a radio service to do the same kind of broadcasting to China and other repressive societies in Asia, such as Vietnam and Myanmar. Candidate Clinton endorsed the recommendation. Last year, President Clinton repeated his support for Radio Free Asia. But so far, the idea has been slowed by bureaucratic and congressional wrangling, with only desultory efforts on its behalf from the White House. Now, the President’s budget threatens to kill it off.

The White House proposes to spend only $10 million on Radio Free Asia in 1995, about a third the amount that the commission estimated would be necessary and that Congress authorized (all of which could come from cuts already ordered in other foreign broadcasting accounts). The issue will now go to the appropriations process, where the Administration could still reverse itself and support the full authorized amount. If the appropriation is cut back to $10 million, it is likely the whole project will never get off the ground.

As a means of promoting human rights and democracy in China, Radio Free Asia has important advantages over trade sanctions, the threat of which has so roiled Sino-American relations. The problem with sanctions is not that they make the Chinese government angry, but that China’s economic growth and foreign commerce are engines of pluralization, so it may be self-defeating to hinder them. And by retarding private business development, trade sanctions may weaken some of the very elements we wish to strengthen.

Radio Free Asia, on the other hand, will make Chinese rulers just as angry, but it contains no such self-defeating potential, and it does nothing but strengthen those we want to strengthen--independent-minded folks, both dissidents and those inside the system.

There is a second reason why Radio Free Asia can be more fruitful than trade sanctions. With sanctions, some concessions can be exacted, but only up to a point. The regime knows that if it gives too much, it will crumble. We can scarcely expect the regime to cooperate in its own overthrow.

The hope for China’s future is not that its aging Leninist oligarchs will change their ways. Rather, it rests in the empowerment of the millions of mostly younger Chinese who demonstrated in Tian An Men and elsewhere in 1989 and the millions more (including numerous party members) who tacitly or actively supported them.

Had Clinton already launched Radio Free Asia, the issue of renewing China’s most-favored-nation status might have been handled in a low-key manner, without a visit by the secretary of state, and we might have settled for some modest concessions. Moreover, Beijing might have been less eager to test our mettle had we shown the courage to create the radio despite their sharp protests. Fastidious readers of power, the men in Beijing were surely emboldened to humiliate Secretary of State Warren Christopher by the weakness that has characterized the Administration’s foreign policy. The President can strengthen his hand by pressuring Congress to get Radio Free Asia off the ground.