Ideally, we would always do the right thing for the right reasons, saying the right things about our choice. Real life is less holding out for the ideal than it is deciding which less than ideal course of action is the best. Is it better to do the wrong thing for the right reason? Say the right things about doing the wrong thing? Or is it better to do the right thing regardless of your reasons or what you say about it?
That’s the problem David Ignatius faces in his most recent column. What do you say about Trump’s doing the right thing about Hong Kong?
President Trump has been as erratic on Hong Kong as on most foreign-policy issues. In the early days, he all but invited Beijing to crack down, calling the protests “riots,” and saying it was a matter between Hong Kong and China, “because Hong Kong is a part of China.”
This week, as a crackdown seemed near, Trump whined about being blamed for Chinese intervention and offered a “personal meeting” to resolve the crisis peacefully with the “great leader” President Xi Jinping.
Then, on Wednesday, he personalized the issue even more by linking a trade deal with Xi with a cooperative resolution of the Hong Kong crisis.
Much as I dislike Trump’s crass and self-centered comments, he is avoiding one important mistake in the Hong Kong crisis. He’s not implying that the United States is prepared to step in to protect the demonstrators from the consequences of their actions. He recognizes that Hong Kong is a matter for Beijing and Hong Kong to resolve, and he’s not writing checks that the American people in the end wouldn’t cash.
Like it or not noninterference is the right policy. Personalizing noninterference is certainly the wrong reason and clumsy remarks about the situation are clearly the wrong way of phrasing your policy.
If we were going to proclaim our full-throated support for the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong, the right time to do it would have been 1997. Now it is not merely too little too late, it would be undue interference in internal Chinese politics and, in all likelihood, force Xi’s hand to crack down more harshly.
So, which do we value more? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and saying it inappropriately? Doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons but saying it elegantly? Or doing the wrong thing for the right reasons?
“consequences of their actions”
China also would or will face those, and Trump should remind them they may be deeper and longer lasting than they want to pay.
Vietnam is already getting a lot of their manufacturing business.
This not unprecedented. From President Eisenhower:
“Don’t worry Jim, if that question comes up, I’ll just confuse them.
To Press Secretary Jim Hagerty who pleaded with Eisenhower not to answer any press conference questions about the delicate Formosan Strait crisis, March 23, 1955. (Eisenhower was, indeed, asked if using atomic weapons on China was an option. He delivered a long, confusing reply which was effectively indecipherable.)”
By your tone you seem to favor doing the right thing, which is what I would prefer. If you have ever been in charge of anything of significance you have likely said something that you regretted either because you didnt know all the facts at the time or you were just wrong. Sometimes you just have to eat worms and do the right thing even if it makes you look bad or inconsistent. (I dont remember you being so charitable towards Obama when he did the right thing in Syria after stupidly talking about a red line.)
Steve
The US could have made a difference in 1947-1949, in the Chinese civil war… Most of Hong Kong was on a 99 year lease, returning it back to whoever was the government of China was not a choice.
As for Trump and Hong Kong; for the Chinese government the complexity is Trump does not care about the protests or the protestors but they are weary Trump takes advantage if they make a misstep.