Chat with Amb. James Lilley

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

May 12, 1999 / 6:28 PM EDT / CBS

On May 11, 1999, CBS News and the America Online audience chatted with James Lilley, the former Ambassador to China, about U.S.-China relations in the wake of the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Audience question: What are we to make of today's development that the protests have lessened in China and the media has finally aired Clinton's apology?

Ambassador Lilley: I think the Chinese have derived the most they can get from the extreme actions they have taken lately, tapping into basic Chinese anti-foreignism. The Americans are not responding in the way the Chinese are seeking. They are moving into stage two to extract the maximum benefits they can get. We have killed Chinese, they say, by willful action. We are moving into stage two of negotiations with the Chinese now.

Audience question: China today joined Russia in demanding an end to the air campaign. Do you think the U.S. and other allied forces will (or should) cave in to this pressure?

Ambassador Lilley: That is a very good question. The Chinese have taken the offensive on the air campaign because it inflicted unprovoked punishment on them by destroying their embassy and killing two of their people. The Chinese now are seeking to gain leverage to make a more compromising position on negotiations with Milosevic and Yugoslavia.

The Chinese want to maintain the sovereignty of Yugoslavia over Kosovo. To interfere in the sovereignty of another nation is unacceptable to them. The Chinese are making a case that this is against the UN charter, against the UN's position, and it is very important to them to establish a precedent.

Audience question: Is it possible that, should the Kosovo crisis linger, China & Russia would ally themselves militarily with Milosevic creating a 3rd world war? And if so, what are our chances of success considering our missile reserves are so heavily taxed?

Ambassador Lilley: I think that Russia is a very broken down power. Its military is ineffective, China is a strong and growing power. Yugoslavia is becoming a basket case. Any alliance between those three cannot take on the power of NATO, Europe, the US and Japan. It can be an irritant, but it is not a match for the US, Europe, and NATO.

Audience question: What motivation does China have for encouraging protests against the U.S.? Is this to win diplomatic concessions?

Ambassador Lilley: It is used as leverage to gain moral superiority to China. And to make the other parties feel guilty and to owe Chinese a blood debt. But the Chinese also have internal struggles over how far they should go in accommodating the West in economic and political matters. There are strong rectionary forces in China that resist any Chinese accommodation.

When the Premier made a real attempt to attain entry in to the World Trade Organization, they met 97% of our demands. They were let on and then rejected by the US. So at this point, China feels that it is the aggrieved party. The leaders must co-opt the issue of nationalism from the harder line unit that will establish protectionism on economic matters and stronger political acts.

Audience question: Do you think this incident will help Milosevic gain support to stop the NATO bombings?

Ambassador Lilley: I think that the Allies/NATO will not stop the bombing. To stop the bombing before negotiations would be a fatal mistake. There would be no incentive for Milosevic to cooperate. But do you continuously bomb the infrastructure of Yugoslavia or focus on getting military deployment in Kosovo? So, in the initial stages of negotiations you take harsh principled positions and to cease the bombing unilaterally is to support the positions of Russia, China and Milosevic. We need to tie the cessation of bombing with concessions by Milosevic to meet the five requirements.

Audience question: Will China play an active role in negotiating peace for Yugoslavia? For example, can China convince the UN to intervene?

Ambassador Lilley: No, I think that China can eventually come to our terms, but for the time being, China seems to believe that its interests are served by taking a tougher line. We are not sure whether this is a practical move to gain concessions or is a long term plan to protect and defend Chinese treatment of its own ethnic minorities and to foreclose any possibility of foreign intervention.

Audience question: Why is it that we are only seeing the American Embassy in China and Russia getting protested? Surely other NATO countries have embassies in these countries.

Ambassador Lilley: Well, in China the demonstrations were against the British and Albanian embassies, but by far extent they targeted the U.S. I don't think American audiences are interested in what the Chinese are doing against the Albanians and British. They see the screaming students and the flag burning, which is really media hype - no matter where: Korea, Iraq, wherever. It is disappointing to see the civilized Chinese resort to the same acts as the Koreans. It is not a courageous act to burn a flag.

Audience question: What role does the upcoming 10th anniversary of Tiananmen Square play in the way the Chinese government is handling this issue?

Ambassador Lilley: Again, that is a sensitive question. I believe it is clear from the Chinese crack down on political opposition in the past month that they are concerned about any actions takeagainst their regime. The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade came at a time when the Chinese found it very useful to use this to divert domestic dissatisfaction, oppression, corruption, and nepotism. They can divert that opposition and prevent the Chinese from focusing on Tiananmen. This gives the Chinese the opportunity to proclaim that any one who participates in a demonstration at the time of Tiananmen, is in fact supporting the Imperialist aggression against China. This in turn excites the passions of the Chinese who have a long history of foreign exploitation - whether it is the Opium War by the British in 1840 or the brutal invasion of China by the Japanese in 1957. This fits in to that pattern and that fixation in the Chinese psychic.

Audience question: How much is the government not telling us about this so-called mishap?

Ambassador Lilley: Again, we really do not know yet. We have the government's explanation, supported by Secretary William Cohen and director of Special Intelligence George Tenet, which says that it was an intelligence failure. There are three problems with that, though I believe it was an intelligence failure.

The first argument was from the Chinese. The Chinese argued that is was manipulative and directed. It says, you cannot make that judgement before you have completed your investigation. Therefore, President Clinton and Cohen were not feeding you the answer you deserve. Second, the Americans say and others say, we have a huge intelligence budget, how could you make this kind of a mistake? It is inconceivable that this can happen.

There is skepticism among the Chinese in America, in Hong Kong, and among the average American who does not believe what President Clinton says on anything. And there is the thinking that there is always a hidden motive behind anything a politician says. The main thing is to put the emotional issues behind us and get on with making the world work. Thank you audience, you are very bright and ask very perceptive questions.

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