SINCE December, five U.S. professors traveling in China have been detained. The Chinese have held them on counts ranging from divulging "state secrets" to espionage, giving their families and the United States little information about their whereabouts or the charges they face. Our state department chooses to ignore the problem. In front of a Congressional hearing two weeks ago, Asst. Secretary of State James Kelly warned that, despite the ambiguous circumstances, we could not pressure the Chinese into releasing our professors.
At the same time, a U.S. district judge sentenced an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent and former Cuban refugee to five years in prison, for a crime of "disclosing classified information" to his former home
(http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010629/pl/ins_espionage_2.html). The judge admitted that the disclosure posed "no significant threat to national security," and consisted mainly of disinformation. The inconsistencies in our treatment of Cuba and China show the lack of credibility to our moral stances in foreign policy.
Either the United States must open trade with Cuba or shut off trade with China in order to have a morally consistent foreign policy. This is not to advocate one option over the other, but one of the two is necessary.
Cuba and China both score low marks for human rights. A resolution released by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1996 charges that the Cuban government "systematically violates all of the fundamental civil and political rights of the Cuban people, denying freedoms of speech, press, assembly, movement, religion, and association, the right to change their government and the right to due process and fair trials"
(http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/un/chr/chr96/country/1996_60.htm).
China is no better in the eyes of the world. In the 2000 Annual Report on Human Rights, the U.S. State Department claims that China's "poor human rights record worsened, and it continued to commit serious abuses." The report points out many examples of these abuses by the Chinese government, such as "extrajudicial killings, the use of torture, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, the mistreatment of prisoners, lengthy incommunicado and denial of due process."
Last week, a Chinese doctor testified in the United States that the Chinese government in Beijing harvests and sells body parts from executed criminals, "sometimes before they are clinically dead"
(http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/28/china.organ/index.html). The doctor claims that "this human rights violation is very unique. It does not happen in any other country, only in China."
The same day, Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan. According to CNN, the leaders "agreed that relations between the two countries had improved," with Tang promising an economic "boost" to help out the United States
(http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/28/china.us/index.html). While both Cuba and China are guilty of human rights violations, the United States has selectively punished the country that has the least economic sway.
Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States has imposed countless sanctions on Cuba. We have defended our policies with accusations of Cuban human rights violations and anti-American sentiment.
But even our own military intelligence shows that Cuba is harmless to our national security. In 1998, the Pentagon declared that Cuba was no longer a threat to national security. Still we hide behind a rhetoric of morality, and our true motivation - money - is clear when we look at our relationship with China.
In complete contrast to our policy with Cuba, trade with China is wide open. Last October, then-Pres. Clinton signed a bill extending "permanent, normal trading status" to China. This will pave the way for China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Contrast this to Cuba, which has been denied admission into the WTO because it is not seen as "sufficiently democratic"
(http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/americas/04/21/summit.americas.01/index.html).
The Chinese can provide us with many economic opportunities. With the largest population in the world and an extremely inexpensive labor base, China makes the mouths of American companies water. The Cubans, on the other hand, do not have a large population, and their exports could hurt the tobacco industry and farmers in the United States.
Don't expect politicians to back the closing of trade with China or the opening of trade with Cuba. Neither is in our best financial interests, so despite our hypocritical position in foreign affairs, it's likely nothing will change.
The fact is that the United States only takes an ethical stand when it is in our own financial interests. The only way that our country's moral stances will mean anything is if we stand by them when it is economically inconvenient for us to do so.
(Brian Cook is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at bcook@cavalierdaily.)
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