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American Morning

China's Two Faces

Aired August 07, 2001 - 09:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We decided to take advantage of somebody who the wind blew in today. Mike Chinoy, our senior Asia correspondent here with us at our world headquarters here in Atlanta at CNN.

Mike, hello.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there.

KAGAN: It's good to see you in America.

CHINOY: It's nice to be back on this side of the Pacific for once.

KAGAN: I'm glad to see you visiting. But you will be involved when President Bush goes and makes his first visit to China in the fall. How are the Chinese anticipating that visit?

CHINOY: Well, this visit has become hugely important. The two countries were, had a real crisis this spring with the EP-3 spy plane incident. I think it served as a wakeup call for both the Chinese and the United States that if they didn't somehow manage their relationship properly, there was a potential for these two huge powers to get into a really dangerous confrontation.

And so on the American side, Secretary of State Powell, who is identified with the more moderate approach to dealing with China, seems to have the upper hand in debates over being tougher, more conciliatory. He's just been in Beijing and the president will be going in October to a meeting in Shanghai and then up to Beijing for meetings with the top Chinese leaders.

And on the Chinese side, they realize that their economic development, which is the one thing apart from repression that keeps the Communist Party in power, depends on continued good ties with the United States.

So on both sides there's an impetus now towards dealing with the issues that divide them and trying to move the relationship forward.

But there's still a lot of contentious issues, including arms sales to Pakistan, human rights, Taiwan. So it's, they're not out of the woods, but after the struggles of the spring, the atmosphere has improved considerably. KAGAN: On a positive note, probably the most positive thing that's happened for China in a long time, securing the Olympic Games for 2008.

CHINOY: Right.

KAGAN: In fact, we saw you in the middle of thousands of screaming people in the middle of Beijing when that announcement was made.

CHINOY: Right. Right.

KAGAN: And we saw that live here on CNN. It seems like the world is seeing two Chinas, the China that's promising to be softer and better on human rights, and then we see the China that has the incident with the spy plane, as you mentioned, and also detaining U.S. based scholars.

CHINOY: Well, I always see China as a kind of paradox. It is a country run by a communist party that is determined to crush any opposition to its rule. The party is very skittish right now. They're going into a leadership transition next year and there's a lot of dislocation in Chinese society as they modernize. They're going to join the World Trade Organization. That's going to shake things up even more.

So on the one hand you see tremendous repression in the Chinese media, dissidents, human rights activists, crackdown on the Internet, closing Internet cafes. And yet at the same time, as I found out when I was in Beijing for the Olympic announcement, there's another side of China that's incredible free wheeling, that there's a wide range of artists, cultural activities and in people's personal lives apart from politics they're freer in many ways than they've ever been to make those choices that the Communist Party used to make for them about their jobs, their mates, whether they can travel.

So you have these two forces going in parallel. As China develops and opens up and connects with the rest of the world the tensions between those two are going to mount and that's what makes China such an interesting story.

KAGAN: And makes for a great canvas for a journalist of your stature.

CHINOY: Right. Right.

KAGAN: Good to have you with us here on U.S. soil. Enjoy some good American coffee while you're here.

CHINOY: OK. Thanks. And we'll talk to you from Beijing when the president goes.

KAGAN: I look forward to that.

Mike Chinoy, thanks so much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com