China and Nato

CHINA AND NATO

Fifty years is not a long time in the life of a nation that can boast 5000
years of history.  But the last 50 years have perhaps transformed China
more than all of its thousands of crawling years.   This year is the 50th
anniversary of the Communist Revolution in China.   Tiananmen Square is
under repair and Beijing is in a fury of construction to pave the way for
the celebrations on October 1, 1999.
Since my last visit in 1992, Beijing has changed so much that it cannot be
recognized.  Construction is everywhere in sight.  High rise hotels,
offices, and apartment buildings decorated with neon signs and huge
billboards give the city the look of an emerging global city.  In 1992,
bicycles swarmed the streets.  Today cars and traffic jams clog the
boulevards.  Bicycles are shoved to the sideways.    In 1992, the air was
fresh and the view clear.  Today, a fog of pollution hangs over the city.
In 1992, McDonald's had just opened up its first fast food store near
Tiananmen Square.  Today, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Coca
Cola signs pierce the skyline.   In 1992, only a few department stores
with inferior goods were around.  Today, numerous department stores are
filled with the latest designer goods bearing the logos of Pierre Chardin,
Gucci, and Nina Ricci.  
In the meantime, a new prosperous middle class has emerged to drive the
cars, to stroll the shopping centers, to flood the department stores, and
to demand democratic rights.  One of those rights is the right of peaceful
demonstration that took place against the recent bombing of the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces.   Whatever political views this new
middle class may hold on domestic affairs, its views on international
issues are intensely nationalistic.   In my conversations with Chinese
scholars and students, I found that none accepts the NATO's labeling of
the bombing as a mistake.
"How could the constant satellite mapping of Yugoslavia in general and
Belgrade in particular leave any doubt as to where the embassies and arms
depots are?" one of them asked me rhetorically.
"My view is that the bombing was a warning to China on the Taiwan issue,"
a senior professor told me.  "As another warning to China, North Korea
will be the next U. S. target of bombing."  
This may sound Sinocentric.   But perceptions in international affairs
often constitute realities.   The perception of NATO as a bully giving
itself a new mission to intervene wherever and whenever it wishes is
resurrecting the image of a new imperialism.  
"It is the White Man's Burden all over again," another Chinese scholar
explained.  
In view of the Chinese, PAX NATO is arrogating to itself the right of
intervention without going through the United Nations.   In an age of high
and low tech weapons of mass destruction propelled by competing national
ambitions, the world desperately needs the rule of law.  PAX United
Nations presents the best option that the world has so far developed for
the maintenance of international peace and security.   Bypassing UN in the
name of humanitarian intervention may prove to be a Trojan Horse for
hegemonic ambitions.   Besides, in Kosovo, it has produced greater
tragedies that it set out to correct.  
However, the United Nations cannot fulfill its obligations so long it is
under funded and undermined.  If NATO's humanitarian intentions are
genuine, its leaders must reverse their policy and support a United
Nations Peacekeeping Police (UNPP).   That force can better assist in
bringing the refugees back and reconstructing a war-torn country. That
would persuade China and others more effectively than NATO's protestation
of good will. 
UN was set up to act as a collective security mechanism in cases of
outright aggression and, by extension, genocide.    The UN Charter
prohibits interference in the internal affairs of its sovereign
member-states.   However, the Genocide Convention allows the international
community to act in order to stop ethnic cleansing.   The lesson of Kosovo
is that the UN must now develop an early warning system to identify and
effectively deal with such violations of human rights before military
interventions make a peaceful resolution nearly impossible.   
Majid Tehranian
Beijing, May 15, 1999

__________________
Majid Tehranian is professor of international communication at the
University of Hawaii and director of the Toda Institute for Global Peace
and Policy Research.  His latest books are Technologies of Power:
Information Machines and Democratic Prospects (1990), Restructuring for
World Peace: At the Threshold of the 21st Century (1992), and Global
Communication and World Politics: Domination, Development, and Discourse
(1999), Worlds Apart: Human Security and Global Governance (1999), and
Asian Peace: Security and Regional Governance in Asia Pacific (1999)