While China may not be North Korea, in these very days Chinese border guards are rounding up not only religious dissidents and democracy activists, but are conducting an intense campaign to find, catch and return to North Korea those few thousands of hapless souls who made it into China in search of food and safety. These refugees from the world s worst human condition are repatriated to an uncertain fate, usually involving torture, extreme brutality and quite likely death. After all, if we consider some of the arguments made in support of the Congressional decision to grant Permanent Normal Trading Relations to China, we should come to the conclusion that democratic change in China is not far off, even imminent, if we ll only be patient a while longer. Opening the door in this fashion, big business and China s lobby in the United States tell us, means that western products, western technology and western ways will become the handmaidens of democracy, because where there is economic freedom, political freedom must inevitably come. We want and need a stable relationship with China, and we are capable of respecting China s independence and its own concept of its national security.
China rejects our objections as Western claptrap, so much wind.
In an increasingly interdependent world, China rejects our views as gross interference in its internal affairs. In the vernacular of the day, China tells us to shove it and to keep our hands off and noses out of its internal affairs. We can deal with this, and we have no choice but to deal with it. It will not be the first time that we have been openly insulted by a hostile regime. Nor do we need to insist that China become a western nation, whatever that might mean.