CULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnT H E CHINA LOBBY was m fullrnswing this summer, and once again thern”If We Can Sell Every Chinaman JustrnOne” crowd carried the day. By a widerrnthan expected margin, the House ofrnRepresentatives defeated a resolution revokingrnChina’s Most Favored Nation status,rnletting both the Senate and the Presidentrnoff the hook.rnAs Alan Tonelson of the U.S. Businessrnand Industrial Council has pointed out,rnAmerica’s corporate China lobby claimsrnthat “revoking MEN would shut U.S.rncompanies out of a huge and vigorouslyrnexpanding market for goods produced inrnthe United States, hurting hundreds ofrnthousands of American workers, as wellrnas American companies. But China’srnmeager imports from America”—lessrnthan what we sell to Belgium—”indicaternthat most U.S. companies (as well asrntheir Hong Kong and Taiwanese counterparts)rnvalue China for a completelyrndifferent reason—as a production site forrngoods they want to sell to America. Chinarnas a production site and export platformrnfor American business mainly fattensrnthe profits of U.S. multinationalrncorporations at the expense of Americanrnworkers whose output has been replacedrnby Chinese factories. For the up to 40rnpercent of Chinese exports sent to thernUnited States, this intra-firm trade hitsrnAmerican workers especially hard.”rnHowever, trade (which should havernbeen among the chief reasons to revokernMEN but was actually the trump card assuringrnits continuation) hardly figured inrnthe public debate. Instead, the discussionrnprimarily centered on human rights,rnrepression of democracy activists, officialrnpersecution of Chinese Christians, proliferationrnof missiles and weapons technology.rnHong Kong, and Taiwan—issuesrnwhich, while not negligible, do not haverna direct and immediate impact on Americans’rnlivelihood. What was strikingrnabout the debate was how little it concernedrnAmericans’ interests and howrnmuch it rested on the competing claimsrnof how best to bring about democracy inrnChina. In short, it was less a debaternabout policy than about pedagogy, withrnAmerica posing as teacher and a fivethousand-rnyear-old civilization presumedrnto be a gaggle of obstreperous children.rnMEN proponents, ignoring China’srnbrazen mercantilism, sang the usualrnhosannas to their god. Free Trade, as therngerm of great social and moral transformations,rnwith China’s sweatshops thernpetri dishes in which Jeffersonianism isrnbeing cultured. Conversely, too manyrnMEN opponents also see China largelyrnas a “problem” to be “solved” not by freerntrade but by a swift kick in the pants, afterrnwhich the same social transformationrnwill presumably occur.rnThe United States should withdrawrnMEN from China not because of whatrnmay or may not result in China but as arnmatter of American self-interest and selfrespect.rnThe sheer one-sidedness of ourrntrade relations—the Opium Wars in reversern—should be reason enough, withrnChristian persecution, forced abortion,rnand, believe it or not, the human consumptionrnof aborted children sufficientrnto convince the indecisive. We shouldrnnot flatter ourselves that we have eitherrnthe wisdom or the ability to determinernwhen, how, or with what China shouldrnreplace its odious gerontocratic regime.rnBut at the same time we are under nornobligation to be friends with that regimernand enrich it at the expense of our ownrneconomic interests.rnWhether or not MEN is withdrawn, arnfew other issues deserve serious thoughtrnas Chinese communism degenerates intornHan national bolshevism. As Beijingrnhas stated, the sequence will be HongrnKong, Macau, Taiwan. With regard tornthe last, independence is no longer anrnoption, if it ever was. For that matter, thernsalient feature of Kuomintang rule onrnthe island is that the KMT agrees withrnthe mainland on the one point that cannotrnbe compromised: that Taiwan is arnpart of sovereign China. Assuming thatrnBeijing has indeed abandoned Marxism/rnLeninism, it is to be expected thatrnsome sort of arrangement will bernreached that allows continued KMT administration.rnTaiwan aside, the aspirations of thernAmerican political class to build a U.N.-rnled global order enforced by the UnitedrnStates will increasingly clash withrnBeijing’s determination to place itsrnsovereignty above all other considerations.rnInstead, the United States shouldrnseriously consider an apportionment ofrnAmerican, Chinese, and Russian spheresrnof influence in the Ear East and thernWestern Pacific. In Central Asia, Chinarn(along with India) will continue to be arnbulwark against the rising tide of Islamicrnmilitancy unleashed by the Iranian revolutionrnand the collapse of the SovietrnUnion. The Chinese authorities, nornmatter who ends up holding power inrnthe Forbidden City, will suppress thernUighur-led jihad with whatever force isrnnecessary. Belgrade may let the Serbs berndriven from Sarajevo today, Paris mayrnabandon Marseilles to the Algerians tomorrow,rnbut Beijing will not tolerate therneradication of the Han from Xinjiang orrnthe creation of an Islamic superpower inrnAsia.rnFinally, the fundraising scandal involvingrnChinese agents of influence, thernClinton White House, and the DemocraticrnParty is just a peep into how thoroughlyrncompromised much of Washingtonrnis by foreign interests. Beijing’srncapitalization on the wealth and vitalityrnof the overseas Chinese community—rnand the American citizenship of many ofrnits members—may force us to face therntaboo question of migratory subversion.rnThe Balkanization of America is notrnpurely a domestic phenomenon but arnvulnerability that will be increasingly exploitedrnby foreign governments trying tornskew American policies to their own purposes.rn—Dhimitrios GheorghiournEUGENE NARRETT has lost his jobrnas a professor of English at FraminghamrnState College in Massachusetts. An outspokenrnconservative who never misses arnchance to bash feminism and liberalismrnin his columns for the Middlesex CountyrnNews and in periodic essays for this andrnother magazines, Narrett thinks that hisrnpolitics had much to do with his firing.rnNarrett’s view has been seconded byrnconservative columnists in the Bostonrnarea and by the National Association ofrnScholars, which has written outraged lettersrnto the ESC administration. At thernvery least, his firing and the incidentsrnleading up to it raise questions aboutrnwhether the First Amendment is still inrneffect at a school that the taxpayers arernforced to fund.rnNarrett’s qualifications are not inrnSEPTEMBER 1997/7rnrnrn