Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [166]
I arrived in the George W. Bush administration among the more cautious about China’s long-term ambitions. The PRC consistently said it was seeking a comfortable relationship with the United States and the West and took some steps to reinforce that promise. At the same time it was steadily building up its military capabilities, placing hundreds of missiles across the strait from Taiwan and periodically engaging in heavy-handed provocations.11 I was intent on understanding what the PRC’s intentions might be. What implications might their actions have for their neighbors, such as Taiwan, India, Singapore, Mongolia, and Vietnam, and for our close allies in Japan and South Korea? What might it mean for the flow of commerce in the Pacific? Why was there so little transparency about their defense spending and its purposes? Each time I raised such questions in various diplomatic forums, it invariably led to headlines about my “hard-line” approach toward China.
We were fooling ourselves if we believed the Chinese were the “strategic partner” that President Clinton and others had wishfully suggested.12 When I worked on China issues in the 1990s, I was struck by an old Chinese adage: “Sometimes you have to kill a chicken to frighten the monkeys.” It was illustrative of their approach: China would coerce and make an example out of their neighbors, internal dissenters, and internal independence movements (such as the Tibetan and Uighur efforts) for the purpose of bringing others into line.13
Whatever my concerns about Chinese intentions, I had a reasonably clear view on what the administration’s stance should be. As with the Russians, I tried to put myself in their shoes. Policy making often involves trade-offs. If the administration appeared too accommodating, the Chinese might well interpret that as a sign of weakness, which could encourage more belligerence. Conversely, if we treated China as a threatening rival, our antagonism could encourage the more militant elements in internal Chinese debates to prevail. Soon after my return to government, I put some of these thoughts on paper:
We ought to avoid unnecessarily working ourselves into problems with China.
Confronting China with a list of the things we want from them, telling them how to behave, won’t work.
Our goal ought to be to not emphasize them as a threat today, but, rather, see if we can’t seize the opportunity to establish a relationship that will be more to our advantage when they do become stronger.14
President Bush felt that we had an opportunity to work with China’s leaders to try to help shape their country’s future by demonstrating firmness, candor, and cooperation. I agreed with that approach. I watched the Chinese carefully to see the extent to which their actions reflected their words. The Chinese were watching us as well. It was not long before we had an opportunity to learn more about each other and, unfortunately, I don’t think America emerged from that encounter with the better hand.
In the predawn hours of April 1, 2001, the American crew of the EP-3 flight designated Mission PR32 made its way from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa on a routine mission over the South China Sea.* The American EP-3 was a lumbering, four-engine propeller-driven aircraft outfitted with an impressive array of advanced electronics. It was in international airspace conducting a reconnaissance