Engagement with reciprocity spells Foreign Policy Success
Recent overtures by the Obama Administration toward lifting the Cuban embargo is something to be welcomed. In the words of Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), who was part of the largest congressional delegation to Cuba since 1959, the almost 50-year-long attempt to isolate the island “has been an abysmal failure.”
However, engaging a communist society with commerce and other niceties without larger objectives is a clearly one-sided activity. Who in Cuba would not want more Yankee dollars? Trade always implies give and take, reciprocity, if you will.
In the early 1970’s a group of US Senators fully appreciated the power of reciprocity, of connecting trade with vital foreign policy objectives. Headed by Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, these senators successfully negotiated the so called “Jackson Amendment” to the Trade Reform Act, which tied “Most Favored Nation” trade benefits to increased emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. As a result, tens of thousands of persecuted Jews were allowed to leave Israel. A dent was made in the armor of Soviet repression. Human Rights dissidents were emboldened. A little more than a decade later, The Czech “velvet revolution” and the fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of the Cold War and Soviet repression that cost tens of millions of lives. Unfortunately, once the Soviet Empire collapsed, we did little in the way of encouraging and supporting the fledgling forces of democracy with reciprocal trade and other inducements. But clearly, through the leadership and vision of Senators like Scoop Jackson, the efficacy of linking trade with larger foreign policy objectives has been established and the world is a safer more secure place as a result.
Regrettably, the United States did not apply this winning formula in its engagement with China, a country whose one party communist state is responsible for more innocent deaths that Hitler and Stalin combined. We enabled China with our largesse in trade and technology. We fast tracked China into the World Trade Organization as we brushed aside their brutally repressive treatment of the Tibetans, Uyghurs, Christians, and democracy advocates. In June of 1989, as more than a million discontented Chinese citizens peacefully assembled in Tiananmen Square to express their frustration with the corruption and tyranny of the Communist Party rule, the United States and other Western democracies looked the other way as the rulers crushed the demonstration with tanks and guns. The reward for this behavior was even more trade and even more legitimacy for the Chinese Communist rulers. The Olympics were awarded to China and the first president of the United States ever to participate in Olympic opening ceremonies, went to Beijing in 2008, even as the brutal repression of the Tibetans, and human rights activists, Christians, and ordinary citizens was accelerated.
So today, as we approach the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, we can see the results of engagement with and without reciprocity. The Soviet empire is no more. The Communist regime in China, on the verge of collapse in 1989, is now stronger than ever. Its military, economic, and technological might challenges and intimidates the world community at will. By all accounts its repression of its citizens is now far worse than before the Olympics. We have engaged China without reciprocity and in the process we have created a formidable threat to world peace and security.
So perhaps we can get it right with Cuba. The recent congressional delegation to Cuba should be commended for their leadership. However, this commendation comes with caution because, while this delegation met with the Cuban government officials, it apparently did not make even a token attempt to meet with dissidents or persecuted groups. Let’s not make this mistake again. Let’s engage Cuba, but let’s dangle every dollar we bring with the bell of more freedom and more openness for its citizens. This is successful foreign policy and the path for a more prosperous, peaceful, and stable partnership in the Caribbean.