Re: Jiang Zemin / William Clinton Dialog Challenge

[myturn@xxxxxxxx (John Gelles)]

	Subject dialog took place and this is what they said.
	(President William Clinton (wc) spoke first.  President
	Jiang Zemin (jz) then replied):
	
wc	Welcome Mr. President.
jz	Yes.

	[Most small talk omitted]

wc	We need each other as enemies -- to keep our own nations
	from coming apart at the seams..

jz	And we need each other as friends -- to make money
	and keep from going to war.

wc	We'd like your military power to grow only as fast as your
	money -- to not get ahead of the game.

jz	That won't be possible. We aim to grow our power as
	fast as we can, but on a sustainable basis.  Put it this way,
	we already have a MAD veto over nuclear war and the
	largest potential infantry.  We will reach parity in force
	projection before we reach parity in hard money.  But
	you can live with that -- and so can we.

wc	Well let us not have an arms race. Can you keep your
	fleet and air arm down to the size that fits one ocean
	and live with ours while it's sized for two?

jz	A parity below parity.  We can live with that if you are
	real partners with us and don't pay cutthroat -- using
	Russia or Japan for temporary advantage whenever
	your elites see one.

wc	Well, for the moment no one is ganging up on China.
	I hope you won't try the same game in reverse, and
	team with another partner against Number One.
	We hope to hang on to that title for another 100
	years.

jz	China does not have to partner with bordering
	giants -- its safer for us to partner with you.
	Let us hope our respective elites agree.  Which
	brings us to Taiwan.  You bullied us when we
	were protecting our agreed strategy -- Taiwan
	belongs to us.
	
wc	At your present rate of economic and military
	growth, you will keep Taiwan.  But if you lightened
	up politically, an autonomous Taiwan might be your
	Puerto Rico -- with nothing to fear but making more
	money the easy way, the way you can in Hong Kong.

jz	Maybe so.  But you know how autonomous regions
	can bring on war.  You have got to be on our side
	if that happens.  Where would you have been if
	England had fought on the side of the South?

wc	I guess I'd be President of the CSA.

jz	You see what I mean.

wc	Let's talk about Korea.  If we could solve Korea --
	bring that famine to a halt, conclude peace, schedule
	re-unification, we could prove partnership, even with
	four of us, (Russia and Japan are there), is possible.

jz	We are sending the most food.  You, Japan and
	your allies ought to send the most.  You can afford it.
	Food without conditions.  You have the surpluses
	and have nothing to lose.

wc	It won't happen without conditions.  But we will
	leave our staffs with a note that if they can make
	real progress here, the rest of the world will take
	notice.  Feed Korea and we may yet bring sanity
	to the world.

jz	My people are doing as much as we can. Let us
	see what you can do.

wc	I want to talk about exporting weapons and
	technology to enemies of  America.

jz	We are holding this trade to a minimum. We both
	ought to work to reduce arms exports -- but
	America remains number one in the market.
	If you would set the example of defense without
	export of arms, and show how extra unit cost
	per plane or missile is not what counts -- peace
	is what counts -- then other great powers might
	know what you really have in mind -- what you
	really have under control.

wc	Believe me. We don't need to export arms. And
	neither do you.  But when you export to our
	enemies, you go over the line and no American
	government will be able to trade with you.

jz	You remind me of a similar problem -- your
	cultural 	exports.  You are exporting hate-China
	doctrine dressed up as love of liberty when you
	really love only your own advantage over others.
	Stop talking liberty until you have it on the streets
	of your own cities and exploited rural counties.
	Authority is all that holds war and rebellion at bay.
	Do your part to curb the fanatics and zealots and
	keep our peoples dedicated to the long hard road
	to peace and plenty under stable authority.

wc	There's money to be made stirring the pot.
	Our media lords are knuckling under to your
	needs -- as you franchise their growth.
	I wish I knew how to manage the press and
	media in the public interest -- but I don't.
	Let's eat, Mr. President.  Not Chinese, French
	or Italian, but Arkansas chicken and ribs.

jz	Good idea.  We can exchange laundry lists of
	present sticking points; but what we're here for
	is to recognize that we are each too big to be
	enemies and to weak as individual leaders to
	correct our own nation's fundamental flaws.

wc	That's true.  They say no nation has friends --
	only interests.  Yet all have a primary interest
	today to be friends.  War has grown less and
	less useful as weapons increase in fury.

jz	Economic war, too, is getting worse.  Your
	nation and its allies have yet to develop your
	own societal needs, yet you are hell bent on
	expansion into new markets.  Your firms are at
	war with each other and with their governments
	too.  How come you offer so much internal
	advice to us when you have so much internal
	failure at home?
	You know, I know your Gettysburg Address
	by heart.  And you don't have government of
	the people by and for the people.  Not by a
	long shot.

wc	Mr. President, I want you to meet Jesse.  He's
	Chairman of our Senate committee that has close
	to a veto over much that I might want to do in
	foreign 	affairs to make Abe Lincoln's hopes
	come true. He's one of our "by the people" guys.

jz	Funny, I thought he was one of ours.
	Jesse, you're old.  In China we're looking for
	younger men these days.  Women?  Oh, we've
	had them too.

		
	Stymied by thoughts of war and politics the two
	got down to business.  They agreed that China's
	exports to our market were good for both nations.
	Growth for them.  Low prices for us.  They agreed
	that American capital investment in China was
	also good for both.  Business would do for China
	what politics could not.  Business would do to
	America damage believed by the conventional
	wisdom to be the price of industrial progress.
	The ways to avoid that damage were not
	discussed -- no one had a clue.


               John Gelles        email to:    myturn@xxxxxxxx
               http://www.myturn.org   ;   http://www.rain.org/~jjgelles/