Squall over Carter's Move

Conservatives campaign against the U.S. deal with Peking

A gutsy, courageous decision," declared Democratic Senator Frank Church of Idaho, who will become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the 96th Congress convenes in mid-January. "An act of treachery," countered Republican Congressman John Ashbrook of Ohio, a leader of the conservative bloc on Capitol Hill.

So raged the debate in the U.S. last week over Jimmy Carter's decision to break diplomatic relations with the Nationalist Chinese government in Taipei, cancel Washington's defense treaty with Taiwan and open full diplomatic relations with the Communist Chinese government in Peking.

Conservatives accuse Carter of betraying a longtime ally. New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thomson Jr., chairman of the National Conservative Caucus, ordered flags of Taiwan lowered to half-staff over his statehouse. The American Conservative Union asked its members to protest to their Congressmen. Ronald Reagan, running hard for the 1980 G.O.P. presidential nomination, cabled Nationalist Chinese President Chiang Ching-kuo "to express my deep regret at the action that has been taken."

Many opponents of the China deal rallied round Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who in his text for a televised reply to Carter said: "The President called into question this nation's treaty world." Goldwater credibility filed suit in throughout the federal court in Washington to test Carter's authority to end the 1954 defense treaty with Taiwan. Contending that no treaty can be terminated without a two-thirds vote by the Senate, Goldwater called Carter's decision "an out right abuse of presidential power."

Not really. On several occasions in the past, Presidents have ended treaties without asking for the Senate's support; one of the last times was in 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt canceled a commercial agreement with Japan. Several constitutional experts sided with the Administration. "The search for precedents is not critical," said Yale Law School Professor Bruce Ackerman. "What we have is a gradual evolution of presidential-congressional interaction on the conduct of foreign affairs. It seems obvious to me that once the President has acted unilaterally, there is little Congress can do."

Even if the conservatives lose in court, they intend to harry Carter's new China policy in Congress. Vowed Ohio's Ashbrook: "We will throw up every conceivable roadblock." They will have several opportunities. Carter will have to seek the Senate's confirmation of his nominee as Ambassador to China. He will also have to ask Congress for funds to open an embassy in Peking and for the approval of changes in the treaty language that are needed to keep in force nonmilitary agreements with Taiwan.

Some critics tried to link Taiwan with Israel, claiming that the China decision showed the Carter Administration to be an unreliable ally. But the situations in the Middle East and the Orient differ enormously, and so do U.S. interests in both parts of the world. Moreover, the U.S. stuck with Taiwan--supplying money and arms and maintaining the fiction that Taiwan was China--for nearly 30 years, arguably longer than any other world power in such a situation would have been willing to do.

A more legitimate question, and one that will be debated for some time, is whether the U.S. could have held out for a clearer promise about Taiwan's security. As it was, the Chinese agreed only to the tactic of not objecting to, and thereby tacitly accepting, Carter's assurances that Taiwan was in no danger of invasion from the mainland and that the U.S. would continue to supply Taipei with defensive weapons.

Nonetheless, the speed with which the Administration accepted the agreement contributed to doubts, even among supporters of normalization, about whether the U.S. got the best of the bargain. Said Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers, fresh from spending two weeks in mainland China: "It made me wonder how much the President left on the negotiating table." Probably nothing, in the view of several Asian scholars. "We could have held out," said Harvard's Benjamin Schwartz, "but I doubt that China would ever openly say that it was going to assure the security of Taiwan."

The Administration launched an all-fronts lobbying effort. Vice President Walter Mondale, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Pentagon Chief Harold Brown and other Carter advisers phoned every Senator and key Congressman to ask for support and to answer questions. The White House was also considering asking big businessmen and big farmers for endorsements. Said a White House aide: "It is going to be hard for Senators to raise hell if the power structures in their home states say that China is a good deal." The opposition is hurt further by the fact that Carter is backed on China by some prominent Republicans, including ex-Presidents Ford and Nixon and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Initial public response was mixed, even confused. According to a poll by the New York Times and CBS, Americans opposed Carter's decision to transfer U.S. recognition from Taipei to Peking by 45% to 32%; but by 58% to 26%, the public opposed further arms sales to Taiwan.

The Administration's hopes of overcoming opposition by the conservatives were helped considerably by the response abroad. Most governments saw Carter's decision the way French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing did, as a long overdue "recognition of realities."

Publicly, at least, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev took the same position. He sent Carter a message acknowledging, in the U.S. President's words, "that the proper relationship between sovereign nations is to have full diplomatic relations." The Soviets objected to the joint Chinese-American communique opposing "hegemony," which is a Chinese code word for Soviet expansionism. Otherwise, Moscow took a wait-and-see attitude toward the U.S. Noting that Carter had assured the U.S.S.R. that the China deal would not harm Soviet interests, Pravda said, "This is a very important statement, and time will show if these words accord with practical deeds and political actions." Thus the Kremlin seemed to have no intention of letting U.S.-China policy get in the way of a SALT agreement or a summit conference between Carter and Brezhnev.

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