Perspectives

A call for compromise

Use Tibet to build bridges

By Thomas D. Owens

From the May 2008 Print Edition

Far too often in the conservative movement, we mock liberal issues without considering those which could be beneficial to us. Education is certainly an example. Another may be campaign finance reform. Freeing Tibet should also come to mind. “Free Tibet” is not just a hippie bumper sticker — it should be a rallying cry for all Americans.

American foreign policy in Asia has been characterized by a string of defeats and stalemates. We lost China to the Communists in 1949. The Korean War ended in stalemate in 1953. South Vietnam was overrun by the Communist north in 1975. China is currently profiting from genocide in Darfur, and has been propagating the genocide and demographic destruction of natives in Tibet since 1951.

China may be overstretching (and I refer to more than its eyes-bigger-than-mouth economy). We may, in other words, be able to reverse such a string of defeats and stalemates. Chinese authority in Taiwan and Tibet is dubious at best, and the takeover or isolation of both regions has never been conducted with good faith or without provocation. Americans should not pull the wool over their eyes and ignore this opportunity.

It would behoove conservatives and libertarians to use the brutal crackdown in Tibet as a way to build bridges to other communities and ideologies. Chiefly among such new connections would be a Tibet-Taiwan alliance in the U.S. Congress. Liberals and progressives could unite on behalf of Tibet, rallying against human-rights abuses and bloody crackdowns on dissidents. Conservatives and libertarians could unite on behalf of Taiwan, lambasting Beijing to cease its bellicose behavior toward the island nation.

The two sides could muster enough votes to sink trade deals, impose unilateral sanctions, freeze bank assets, and create quite a lot of publicity. Moderates on both sides of the aisle, hoping to table and avoid the issue, will probably not give in, but new partnerships on the far right and the far left could be created, sparking a new era of bipartisanship and a much-needed cooling of relations between Washington and Beijing.

This argument closely follows the maxim of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” As seen throughout world history and international relations, it does not always pan out as intended. Supposed allies betray their former friends, and bilateral relationships change with current events, for example. (See Iraq, U.S. support of, 1980-1989, and Venezuela during Hugo Chavez, 1999-.)

Yet this argument has also seen some remarkable political alliances. The American far right, isolationist and anti- Communist by nature, reluctantly supported U.S. trade and military arms distribution to the Soviet Union during World War II — all in an effort to defeat the Fascist powers. The American far left seldom criticized the emerging post-WWII national security apparatus (basically until the 1960s) — all in an effort to protect the United States from our previous Soviet allies.

Both aforementioned examples involved questions of deep moral and ideological conscience. Are conservatives rooting for the Chinese government against the Tibetans? Absolutely not. So why not band together with other pro-Tibetans in the U.S. political system to help them, and the Taiwanese, resist Communist China and its brutal police?

Sure there are plenty of other places in the world that we could give more attention (I’d say Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Sudan are just a few), but our attention and goodwill could help us with our center-right allies around the world. Japan’s right wing has always been somewhat anti- American, on account of our still-large military presence on Japanese soil. A Japanese-American alliance for Tibet could strengthen the center-right in Japan’s government and mollify its anti-Americanism.

As the London Times reported on April 26, the center-right has been vehemently protesting against the Chinese crackdown in the cities through which the Olympic Torch will pass. Neither they nor the leftists who nowadays protest for Tibet on a regular basis understand that very little will be accomplished on the streets of Berkeley or Nagano, Japan. It takes the governmental actions of whole states, on a bipartisan basis, to pressure the Chinese to leave Tibet in peace. Let us not allow our domestic political squabbles to interfere with this moral necessity.

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