Yesterday's Smartertimes.com criticized the New York Times' description of the split within the Republican Party over Communist China. A front-page article in today's Times takes another pass at it, reporting that "Republicans on Capitol Hill are split between a pro-business wing and more hard-line lawmakers concerned with China's military intentions and human rights record." The same description could apply to the Democrats on Capitol Hill. And the pro-business wing argues (not always persuasively) that it, too, is concerned about China's human rights record, but that it believes that the best way to improve it is by increasing the standard of living and the influence of the West in Communist China by expanding American trade there.
Still, the front-page description is more sensible than yesterday's, and more sensible than the one in today's "Washington Memo," which runs in the national section of the Times. The "Washington Memo" reports that "Mr. Bush's own party remains deeply split between those who would contain China's growing power and those who favor closer diplomatic ties and deeper and deeper economic engagement." (The Times really says "and deeper and deeper"; it's not a case of Smartertimes.com accidentally typing the words in twice.) In this description, the Republicans go from being merely "split" to being "deeply split." And it's hard to figure out what the Times means by saying some Republicans want "closer diplomatic ties" with Communist China. America already has full diplomatic relations with China. It's hard to see what closer diplomatic ties America could have with China, short of letting it into a formal treaty alliance, which Smartertimes.com isn't aware of any Republicans or Democrats seriously suggesting. Finally, as Smartertimes.com noted yesterday, the real China hawks among the Republicans and the Democrats don't simply want to "contain China's growing power"; they want to erode the power of the Communist regime there by ending it and expanding freedom. That policy isn't containment; it's rollback.