The question discussed in the article is whether incremental reform, rather than "revolution," is the best way to bring about change in China. The question she asks is "how politically effective is it to sit in a tiny cell for nine years"? While the liberals have been wasting away in prison, or writing tracts that only they read, others have worked for incremental improvements. As Jianying Zha says, "Meanwhile, the economy kept growing, at breakneck speed. As China integrated into the international marketplace, four hundred million Chinese were lifted out of poverty." Whose life has been the most useful: The one who spends it in prison, or the one who works incrementally and has done a very small part in helping four hundred million people have a better life?
Here in the United States the choices are not so stark, but are real nevertheless. Do we want to be idealists, refusing to compromise, or pragmatists doing what we can, even if we are only taking small, incremental steps towards our goals? When Sen. Webb refused to shake Bush's hand at a meeting, the liberal idealists applauded; but what was accomplished? Did it help end the war? Would the pragmatic approach, of working with Bush, have yielded more?
Our only non-military response is a financial response. They have come to realize that the Bush administration will posture and make bold statements - but at the end of the day do nothing.
Our trade with China should penalize human rights abuses, currency manipulation, dumping, child labor, and environmental abuses. Our trade policy with China should reward expansion of freedoms, market valuations of their currency, labor and environmental protections, and so forth.
We must use a carrot/stick approach, and the Chinese should see a direct relationship between their actions and our trade with them. They should benefit from good behavior and be punished for bad behavior. Its very similar to raising a child. If you don't back up your words, the child will never take you seriously.
Bush doesn't appear to be one for compromise anyways. In a few days or weeks he will veto a war funding bill that the vast majority of Americans support. His policy of failure is finally catching up with him. Unfortunately, we all share the pain of his failings.
You want a "pragmatic approach of working with Bush", but the problem is that Bush is not a pragmatist. He's an ideologue utterly assured of his own righteousness and incapable of accepting other points of view or of moderating his behavior for the greater good. Do you seriously believe that the Dems have refused to try to work with Bush for all these years? Didn't Nancy Pelosi go to the White House her first week in office and try to get the ball rolling with an effort to try to work with Bush? The fact is that anyone who wants to work with this Administration has to go around Bush. For all his reputation for alleged pigheadedness Webb has in fact been working as closely as he can with Condi Rice, and has even been caught saying complimentary things about her recent feeble but still there diplomatic overtures to Syria and Iran. He has not been criticizing her, nor has he directly attacked the Bush Administration. Look at what he's been saying on the floor of the Senate in recent debates - instead of talking about winning or losing he asks much more fundamental questions: Who is it we're supposed to be trying to get a victory over? We already won the war against Saddam, so what is our objective now? Isn't the issue about extricating ourselves from a messy occupation rather than about winning or losing?
Pragmatism only works when both sides are willing to engage in it.
"Do you seriously believe that the Dems have refused to try to work with Bush for all these years?"
Uh, yeah.
I also give credit to Webb for asking questions like that and perhaps learning the answers to them that many of us have known for quite some time now. Then again, the answers never really were important, were they?