For U.S., Engaging China Is Delicate Dance; Mindful of Congress, yet Needing Beijing on North Korea, White House Picks Fights Carefully
AS ANTI-CHINA sentiment rises in Washington, the Bush administration is caught in a complex balancing act: bashing Beijing enough to appease critics in Congress and stir action -- without provoking a trans-Pacific backlash.</br></br>The U.S. is exerting pressure on economic issues and criticizing China's human-rights policy and belligerence toward Taiwan, just as it is begging Chinese leaders for more help in curbing nuclear weapons in North Korea and hoping China won't cozy up to anti-American governments in places such as Venezuela.</br></br>"If we push too hard, this could cool China's ardor for helping us" on a number of issues, says David M. Lampton, director of China studies at the Nixon Center in Washington. Mr. Lampton says China also could potentially retaliate, for example, by shifting investments from U.S. dollar-denominated assets.</br></br>Complicating the White House calculus is soaring hostility on Capitol Hill, which some administration officials call "off the charts." Congress has largely deferred to President Bush's foreign- policy priorities, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, but China policy is one area where legislators are demanding a change of course, particularly on trade.</br></br>Nobody has felt that more than Treasury Secretary John Snow, who recently went to the Senate to testify about his department's budget and found himself in a hearing rife with anti-China anger. "China wants us to be a sponge for all their trinkets and trousers and shirts and shoes and all the things they produce, including high-tech, and yet, they don't want to open their market to us," Democratic North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan lectured the cabinet member, adding: "We sit around without the will, the nerve or the backbone to say this is nonsense; we're not going to put up with this anymore."