So, our flyers are heading to Hawaii. Now that “Dubya” has had his first foreign policy crises which involved all the bad things that could happen:
AMERICANS HELD HOSTAGE!
COMMUNIST CHINESE CRASH INTO U.S. SPY PLANE!
U.S. KILLS HEROIC DEFENDER OF THE MOTHERLAND!
HARD LINE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SAY “BUSH IS WEAK”.
“I’LL GO TO CHINA” SAYS JESSE JACKSON.
Well, you get the idea. So, how did he do? Did he show command over a crises before it got out of control? Did his “hands off” approach work? Did he upset, needlessly, the right wing of his party?
OR
Did he just have his flunkies do all the heavy lifting and he remained detached? Did the “adults” of his administration handle the crisis and just played lips service?
Here is a link to a good article in the Washington Post that may stir up some ideas and opinions.
I’d just love to hear what “The Bunnyhurt Strategy” would have been. :rolleyes:
For those of you who would actually like to think as you evaluate this matter, this Washington Post article from today (different than the link in the OP) is very interesting. It indicates that behind the scenes, Bush was very much involved throughout the crisis. (Maybe if he’d been on TV more, biting his lower lip and looking earnest …?)
“Gave away the store?” Kissed a dictator’s ass?
The U.S. said it was very sorry its airplane had to land in China. Nowhere did we express our blame for the incident, or make any promises regarding our future behavior, or in any other way capitulate to the Chinese.
I’d file the fact that we our sorry an airplane of our’s carrying some of our most high-tech surveillance equipment fell into Chinese hands in the “uh, no shit” category.
And our self-evident statement got our service men and women out of there. No military clashes. Possibilities of maintaining our developing ties and trade with the Chinese intact.
Read the Washington Post article. The Bill Kristols and Brian Bunnyhurts of the world are just going to have to get over it.
Bush is a corporate coward, get over it yourself. No military clashes? Trade and development intact? This is the most absurd analysis of success I have ever heard. There never was going to be military clashes, there is no border to defend, only one-sided trade pacts.
Obviously the Bush administration did very well. Compare this with the Bay of Pigs SNAFU – the quintessential example of groupthink. When the Cuban invasion was being planned, JFK’s meetings developed a psychology that pressured all attendees to agree. In fact, the story goes, an expert who disagreed with the group was not invited to subsequent meetings. As a result, there was nobody to challenge the many incorrect assumptions and mistakes in judgment. The inevitable result was disaster.
W, on the other hand, has foreign policy experts ranging from hawks to doves. IMHO the range of views was a significant factor in his success, and America’s.
I think the groupthink in this case was thinking the impasse was really about 24 military employees. Listen to the thinking: “Oh no, they have our people, we must have done something wrong! Egads! Those Chinese savages might eat them for dinner! Wait, they are free now! Phew! Bush must be a genius for negotiating an apology with those crafty Chinese! Thank God the huge trade imbalance is preserved! He must’ve really cared because he made sure they all had bibles!” (vomit).
In case anyone doesn’t get it, we are still doing friendly lopsided business with people we suddenly “feared” were going to harm our unarmed military personnel during an emergency.
Well, I’m no fan of Dubya by any means, but just speaking in general terms, I’d give him a “B” for his handling of the mess.
His biggest mistake came at the beginning of the crisis, when he was obviously in saber-rattling mode and trying to show how macho he was by demanding the immediate response of the plane and the crew. While that plays well with the West, it simply came off as irresponsible and arrogant to the Chinese (not just the PRC; American-friendly folks like the Japanese, the Koreans, and Asian-Americans felt the same way). Fortunately, Bush was able to rein in his own rhetoric after the first few days, which allowed the diplomats to negotiate a satisfactory conclusion.
In short: A bad stumble out the gate, an awkward recovery, but a good close. Now there’s the bickering over the return of the plane, though I think that’s more symbolic posturing than anything else – most American intelligence sources agree that the electronics gear was trashed before the plane even landed.
My assessment was similar though I was going to give him A-, probably because I was expecting the worst and thinking he’d dig himself into a hole. So I was pleasantly suprised at the good, clean and relatively quick outcome with minimal damage to either side.
But then we hear the jingoish “nah, nah, na nah” stuff once the crew are back on US soil. IMHO this was unnecessary and will prove unhelpful to the US’s future interests and dealings.
Indicates to me he’s not only quite prepared to repudiate the undertakings of previous administrations, he’ll also renege on those of his own.
I’d give him a B for not fucking it up, which he could easily have done by either being too “hard line” or not “hard line” enough. I would like to see some economic consequences for China, though.
I think the US came out of the “crisis” with the upper hand diplomatically. Bush’s 2 minute “Treating the US like this is not in China’s best interest” I think was right on target.
I just wonder when the Republicans in Congress will get around to blaming the incident on President Clinton.
Seems to me that one party in this incident was seeking to provoke the other - but which is who? Did we provoke the Chinese by flying to close or did they provoke us by holding our flyers?
Well, we apparently fly there all the time, so it was not anything new to them. So, if they were trying to test Mr. Bush, I think he played it just right - stay cool, don’t over react. No crisis, no problem. What will the Chinese expect from him now? Not knee-jerk reactions, but diplomacy. Will he negotiate away anything and everything? Unlikely, since he was determined not to take responcibility for the accident and did not. Those who say he blew it, please explain how. (And Wounded Bunny, please save your ‘corporate conspiracy’ garbage, and try stating some facts, ie did you expect Bush to order bombing?)
I don’t think we’ll know for a few years what the outcome of this really is and therefore “how well he did”. Certainly most of the talking and dealmaking will never be public. I think we do have to keep in mind that the incident didn’t occur in a vacuum; every aspect of it is a result of the basic attitudes the current administrations in both countries have toward each other.
Bush made it clear in his campaign that he considered China to be an enemy, not a market or labor source for US manufacturing, and certainly not the haltingly-emergent free-enterprise democracy it seemed to be before. Hostility and mistrust one one side inevitably breeds it on the other side, and we’re seeing and will continue to see the consequences. Somebody’s gonna get killed that way someday, though, and we’re all going to suffer for it meanwhile, both economically and spiritually.
If he’d listen to, or at least accept the seriousness of, or even show an interest in, world views from people other than his intellectually-arteriosclerotic handlers, he might not be saber-rattling so uselessly today. As it is, we’re stuck with people who need an enemy in order to feel like they understand the world. Without the USSR around, that means declaring China the enemy instead, facts be damned.
I don’t recall Bush calling China an “enemy.” Can you supply a cite?
Free enterprise may be emerging in the PRC, but democracy sure isn’t. It’s tyranny. When I was there 5 years ago visiting people in my business, they were fearful of saying anything.
Chinese harassment of our surveillance planes began several months ago, under the prior administration. It was pre-Bush.
China has jailed its own citizens who belong to the religious group Falun Gong. They recently arrested an American citizen and two American resident green-card holders on trumped-up spy charges. At least two of these people are academics. All were born in China. These moves are not caused by American hostility and mistrust; they cause it.
China’s decision to keep our crew hostage (more-or-less) was behavior typifying a rogue state. It wasn’t provoked by our surveillance flights, which have been going on for years. (Most observers think the Chinese leadership was trying to whip up Chinese nationalism, and they did.)
Bush’s advisors are not “intellectually-arteriosclerotic,” if you mean hard-line. Colin Powell is a moderate. If your term was intended to mean “stupid,” then please note that Condoleeza Rice is universally regarded as brilliant. Chaney and Rumsfeld have outstanding records of success in government and in private industry.
Bush was hardly “sabre-rattling.” There was no US military action, no movement of warships or other military might, and no discussion or threat of military action. (Today’s paper says that the Chinese anticipated an attack on Hainan island and were prepared for one.)
In summary, your final words, “facts be damned,” are self-referentially appropriate.
Maintaining trade ties with China is important not just for western economies, but for the Chinese people. Dictatorships fare well under pressure from capitalism. The entry of American companies into the Chinese marketplace is bound to have an eventual liberating effect, as is the growing wealth of the Chinese, due to the trade they enjoy.
Now if the government could see past the political pressure from expatriate Cubans and open up that market as well…
Just because corporations sold many of our national interests (high-tech jobs, democracy, human rights, fair trade) to China, doesn’t mean they never existed (they need the extra money on labor to re-elect Bush afterall). Bush conveniently ignored the human rights and trade imbalance they enjoy, and didn’t even hint at touching it (Thinking: “Oh, we can’t upset them, they keep our non-prisoners longer!”–WHAT A PUSSY!). Of course, his excuse is a lie that he wants us to believe, and most everyone on this thread believes it. We negotiated an apology with mass murderers who enjoy the equivilent of a free pass from all American values and a whopping deficit. If people want to believe we prevented 24 lives from skipping church another week by kowtow diplomacy, then that is what the Chinese want you to believe. They won, because they knew which corporations controlled Bush. They’re just getting used to controlling us by our need for cheap imports.
Ah yes, childish satire. How droll.
When december said this was the opposite of the Bay of Pigs, he had it right.
Look, I didn’t vote for the guy, and for the most part I don’t agree with him, BUT he handled this one almost perfectly, which is especially surprising when you consider he’s only been at this for a couple of months. I give him an A, for astonished. My astonishment, that is.
I even like that he’s dropped the tact now that our people are home. It will help when the meetings start next week.
His follow-up from here is going to be very important. In the heat of the moment I figured selling Taiwan the advanced military equipment they want would be a great idea for getting back at them, but now I’m not so sure. As of right now though, I have to say that I would defer without criticism to whatever course the Bush administration decides to take in dealing with the consequences of this situation, at least for now. He and his advisers have shown themselves to be true pros. They deserve plenty of praise in my book, and plenty of slack - barring some totally stupid move - in the near future in their dealings with China.
Caveat here: I don’t think any of his other foreign policy moves are doing us any good, and I don’t like them. BUT I also don’t think the silly things he’s done in other parts of his foreign policy had anything to do with China’s behavior in this situation.