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Clinton's parting gift to Asia

It speaks volumes that just when the United States determined after years of deliberation that China had engaged in clandestine missile trade with Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Iran, it announced simultaneously that it was waiving its domestic-law requirement to impose economic sanctions. The unmistakable message it conveyed is that as long as such proliferation does not directly impact on US interests, it made more sense to cut a deal with Beijing's Leninist rulers than penalise them.

In every respect, the Clinton administration's latest deal with China stinks. For nearly a decade after Beijing's first missile transfers to Pakistan came to light, Washington kept saying that it was trying to make a sanctions determination. It justified the delay by claiming its domestic law demanded "a high standard of evidence", higher than China's own acknowledgement that some such transfers had taken place!

When the Clinton team reluctantly made the determination last month that various types of missile transfers indeed had occurred, it also struck a deal with Beijing that no sanctions would ensue. In one stroke, it forgave China for all its past transfers made in breach of solemn pledges.

Like earlier non-proliferation deals with Beijing, the latest accord is pivoted on a combination of Chinese promise and US reward. Each time the Clinton team discovered that China had reneged on a promise, it presented new carrots to wheedle out another Chinese promise and it packaged every new Chinese promise as a major diplomatic milestone.

The litter of broken Chinese assurances, however, shows that President Bill Clinton's "strategic engagement" policy has been rewarding Beijing for promises tendered, not promises honoured. The policy illustrates the adage that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result."

An important consequence of that approach is that Asian security comes under pressure both ways -- by the broken Chinese promises that result in the advent of offensive new systems in precarious states like Pakistan and Iran, and by the high technology the United States provides Beijing to win non-proliferation pledges. The flow of US technology, both official and illicit, has helped China to improve the reliability of its Long March rockets and boosted its program to build a new generation of lighter, road-mobile missiles.

China's military modernisation, although still not a threat to the militarily pre-eminent United States, adds to the vulnerabilities of its regional rivals. In the case of India, it only reinforces the psychologically deleterious view in policy-making circles that New Delhi can do little to reverse Beijing's growing strategic ascendancy. The paralysis in India's China policy is a result of that thinking.

The deal's double reward is evident not only from China being fully absolved of its past misdeeds, but also from Washington's intent to grant licenses potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Beijing to launch US commercial satellites atop its rockets. Beijing is likely to make money both ways -- from continued missile exports to close ally Pakistan, and from launching US satellites.

While pardoning the supplier, Washington has slapped some phoney sanctions on the recipient states, Pakistan and Iran. The sanctions were selected and imposed in a manner to purposely render them inconsequential. No one has better explained this charade than the state department, whose spokesperson Richard Boucher had this to say on record: "Because of the ongoing US embargo against Iran, and pre-existing sanctions against Pakistan, the new sanctions will actually have very limited economic effect." Boucher even admitted that they "duplicate other sanctions" already in force.

The only real promise China has kept to date is a halt to all missile transfers to Iran, to which it had sold only components, not readymade systems. In contrast, according to America's sanctions determination, China has given Pakistan "complete missiles, their major sub-systems and their production facilities," besides components and materials.

China is unlikely to completely halt its missile aid to Islamabad given its repeated assertions that "Pakistan is our Israel". Missiles are at the heart of China's military force as well as its strategy against regional rivals like India, Japan and Taiwan. As it improves their range, payload and accuracy and develops alternative delivery systems, particularly cruise missiles, it will have additional incentives to sell its older technologies to Pakistan so as to checkmate India and earn extra funding for its research and development programme.

In any case, with North Korea serving as a handy conduit, China already has found ingenious ways to route certain missile technologies and parts to Pakistan. That allows it to show its hands to be clean when it needs to, while dirtying them only for more critical transfers.

If the deal with Beijing is significant in any way, it is for what it fails to achieve. First, China has still given no signal that it intends to formally join the 32-nation, US-led Missile Technology Control Regime. All it has done is to agree to put in place a set of export controls "of the same sort as MTCR," although it had pledged years ago to observe the MTCR guidelines. Second, the deal is bereft of any kind of verification. Third, China's missile entities are under its defence ministry, but the deal is with the foreign ministry.

A sanctions determination that should have come during Clinton's first term in office was made when his administration had entered its "lame-duck" final weeks in office after the presidential election. And the determination was revealed as part of a joint statement with Beijing.

China's assertive efforts to alter Asia's balance of power in its favour, including through missiles, can only be countered by the United States. Yet, as he leaves office, Clinton has again shown his weakness for the Beijing dictators.

The deal is Clinton's parting gift to Asia. This president who berated his challenger in the 1992 presidential election for "coddling dictators from Havana to Beijing" will be best remembered in history for coddling dictators and bimbos alike.

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, is a strategic affairs expert.

Brahma Chellaney