Peace, Prosperity and Frequent Flyer Miles

Everyone believes in hands-on experience with China. Will a new domestic China syndrome--virulent, negative, ugly--wash over the American scene and poison relations with Beijing? It could happen, especially since mutual ignorance is the historic enemy of mutual understanding. For other than some major Chinese miscalculation (an invasion of Taiwan, blowing the Hong Kong transition, another Tiananmen Square blunder), probably no one thing stands more in the way of improved Sino-U.S. relations than a blustery, blowhard, meddling Congress.

Consider a worried James Sasser, the U.S. ambassador to China and a former senator from Tennessee. He knows Congress far better than I, which is why he frets even more than I. Last March, in fact, Sasser, in his Beijing office, told me of his long-range ambition to “fly half of Congress” over to China to get acquainted. Last week, the first session of the Sasser Cram Course for Potentially Confused Congresspersons materialized; almost two dozen House members flew to Beijing for arranged meetings with top Chinese officials, including no less than People’s Republic President Jiang Zemin. There was praise for Sasser’s efforts. Exclaimed a cheerful, though dog-tired, Jim Kolbe, a Republican from Arizona who led the bipartisan pack into Beijing: “Extremely useful--many members came back with their thinking profoundly changed.”

Los Angeles Democrat Howard Berman, who wasn’t on this trip to China, is the ranking minority member of the House subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. His 14 years in Congress have made him wise to its peculiar ways and means. He believes the Clinton administration has a significant window of opportunity for unfettered Sino-U.S. diplomacy because he doubts Congress’ present ability to despoil relations with China. It’s a Republican house divided, he says: One GOP camp focuses on the human rights issue; the other all but ignores human rights to front for whatever U.S. business wants. And profit-minded executives generally want whatever Beijing wants. “Yes, there is a deep desire in Congress to micro-manage China relations, says Berman, even laughing a little. “But there is such a fundamental split in the Republican Party that in the end they won’t be able to.”

One issue that could galvanize Congress, Berman suggests, is nuclear proliferation. China, he fears, is undermining international agreements by peddling sensitive technology to Iran and Pakistan. On the other hand, Berman predicts that the Republican majority won’t try to reignite the volatile Taiwan issue that last spring nearly prompted a Sino-U.S. military showdown in the Taiwan Strait. “‘Everyone learned a lesson from that,” he says, “Congress as well as China.” Well, maybe.

Los Angeles Democrat Xavier Becerra, another jet-lagged Sasser student just in from Beijing, still worries: “I don’t think we can fathom what China really is. And when you have more than 500 elected individuals in Congress, who knows what could occur over Taiwan? Should it happen again? No. But it could.” That’s just what I thought. President Clinton may have a real opportunity for statesmanship right now, but it won’t last indefinitely. He couldn’t find his way to Beijing during his first term--and now it looks like he won’t get to it until next year. Bad planning.

* Members of Congress aren’t the only ones jetting to Asia to educate themselves. So are students at some of California’s leading graduate schools. The University of California’s innovative graduate school of journalism at Berkeley is packing students off to Hong Kong to observe the coming British handover to Beijing. Says its new dean, China expert Orville Schell: “Asia is our backyard, and the opportunities are there just as much for journalists as for business people.”

And for America’s students of business, too: Last week, when it was announced that a giant $35-million grant had been handed to USC’s business school, USC wasted no time in publicly recommitting to the PacRim. One program is to launch its entire 258-student, first-year MBA class on a required one-month PacRim business course that includes a week’s study abroad. Explains USC President Steven Sample: “Asia is a big fact of life, for the next century at least. And it’s L.A. and Southern California that are the gateway to Asia--not San Francisco or Chicago or Denver. And here’s USC, right here.”

Pepperdine business school dean Otis Baskin, whose older, mid-career students get to study in bustling places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, approves: “Every program that tries to get students to think beyond our borders is good. . . . I applaud USC for taking this step.” How could anyone disagree? Well, sniffs UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management professor Jose de la Torre: “I applaud USC and I don’t mean to sound catty, but going overseas for a week or two? What is that going to do for long-term skills development?” Do I sense a simmering UCLA/USC business school rivalry over how to engineer the best PacRim graduate education? How yummy.