China-Pakistan Missile Trap

The Clinton White House has so many secrets up its majestic portals it needs another Independent Counsel to probe deeper. Apart from personal, financial and party-funding etc --surprising and also shocking to many--there is also an international political and strategic matter the US is stubbornly reluctant to correct. That pertains to China. Beijing, with various acts of violation of not only human rights, which seems to bother the United States more without any substantial action to correct it, but other issues that should be of serious concern to the US. Pakistan is next in line but always escapes.

The news, printed elsewhere in India Post makes disturbing reading. The White House and the State Department callously ignored the intelligence agency CIA’s report about China transferring missiles to Pakistan, consistently denied by both. As if that was not enough, China supplied the missile technology too. All that with broken promises and in serious violation of the international ban on transfer of missile technology.

Time magazine in its latest issue has reported the China-Pakistan nexus in missiles and missile technology. The CIA not only reported the transfer of missiles but the Chinese help in constructing a factory to manufacture medium range ballistic missiles. Obviously the target is India, again, and keeping India engaged on the Western borders leaving a free area for the Chinese to expolit in the East and the South East.

The report further mentions the failure of the White House and the State Department to pursue this serious matter, probe and call for more information and take action against all concerned. The Clinton administration not only ignored the CIA report, or deliberately suppressed it, but also did the unthinkable--pursue its policy of appeasing the Chinese Government by favoring the Most Favored Nation status for Beijing. This will further expand trade and benefit mainly the Chinese, already with a favorable balance of payment.

The White House, despite pressures from the right and left, has followed a pro-China policy. And despite finding the big Chinese hand in fund-raising for the Democratic Party and for President Clinton, has refused to reconsider the MFN status. They say it is to encourage China to follow a path of more liberalization, moreess, more democracy and more assimilation with global economy. The argument is that this liberalization will ultimately benefit the United States and the free world.

The past experience is to the contrary.

There has been no significant march in China toward the democratic path as we in the free world know. The Chinese have given a clear indication about their intentions in Hong Kong, and one could safely say that a region of democratic regime is about to be trampled upon under the authoritarian Red Regime moving in, June 30. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s absence from the ‘taking over’ ceremonies is not going to affect the Chinese a bit.

In contrast to the soft approach of the US toward China, consider what Clinton administration has been doing to India: indiscriminately banning exports of important items to some Indian companies such as Bharat Electronics etc, and expressing its concern based on the Pakistani propaganda about India deploying its Prithvi missiles on the borders! The US is constantly trying to meddle with India’s internal affairs. The American Ambassador goes everywhere advising every one what to do and why to do that. The US intentionally fails to recognize the security perception of India, with a vast coastline and the overall size of the country and the four wars thrust upon New Delhi in the last 50 years.

The US administration interferes with several countries, among the exempted ones is China, and also Saudi Arabia. To the Saudis the US Government can’t even say that American troops stationed in that country to save the Saudi ruling family have a right to live their life styles in their own compound with their own security apparatus and with their own rules and laws. Remember the great difficulty the US experienced in probing the blast that killed 19 American service personnel in Riyadh!

Same with the Chinese. The American Congress, individual freedom-lovers and human rights activists may say it day in and day out but the US Administration just can not make up its mind to follow a realistic and really democratic policy that it wants in relation to some others. They can ask a Kabila to adopt democratic ways but helped an autocratic Mobutu to amass wealth by looting his country just because he helped the US Government to overthrow the previous not-so-friendly Government and allowed people like Pat Robertson also to loot his country.

Similarly, the Chinese with all their nuclear arsenal and dreams of world hegemony do not attract the ire of the US; it’s a democratic and peaceful country such as India that is pressured and expected to submit to the dictates of the US.

Pakistan may be an ally of the US but it is an unreliable and undemocratic, military-oriented and fundamentalist regime that can never be expected to behave. It has been on the verge of being declared a ‘Terrorist State,’ but surprisingly, gets more than cordial consideration even when the US Embassy is attacked and nuclear arsenal is being built.

It’s time the Clinton administration demonstrated its goal of encouraging genuine growth of democracy and peace and with their recently acquired World Policeman status, do something about the trouble spots of the world, in a uniform manner. Snubbing India on Prithvi and Agni etc and looking the other way when its the case of Pakistan and China does not make a powerful country great.

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