Hillary Clinton: Chinese System Is Doomed, Leaders on a 'Fool's Errand'

By Jeffrey Goldberg

May 10 2011, 6:00 AM ET

In an exclusive interview, the secretary of state says Beijing'shuman rights record is "deplorable" and it is "trying to stop history"by opposing the advance of democracy

AP

In my latest Atlantic cover story, which is out now,I interview Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about America'sresponse to the Arab Spring. When we met last month, in her StateDepartment office, she was, as usual, fluent, comprehensive, and intotal control of the details. She was also insistent that theAdministration's approach to the Middle East betrayed no inconsistenciesor hypocrisies (there is much on this subject below, in a transcript ofthe interview). We didn't spend a great deal of time on the Middle Eastpeace process (though my belief, expressed repeatedly,is that she is the best-qualified person in America to bring theIsraelis and Arabs to a negotiated settlement); instead, we discussedthe rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and what it might mean for women,and we also spent some time on the debate between foreign policy realismand idealism.

It was during this part of the conversation, whenthe subject of China, and its frightened reaction to the Arab Spring,came up, that she took an almost-Reaganesque turn, calling into questionnot just Beijing's dismal human rights record, but the future of theChinese regime itself. The Obama Administration has been ratcheting-upthe rhetoric on China's human rights record lately, especially since thearrest of the dissident Ai Weiwei, but Secretary Clinton, in ourinterview, went much further, questioning the long-term viability of theone-party system. After she referred to China's human rights record as"deplorable" (itself a ratcheting-up of the rhetoric), I noted that theChinese government seemed scared of the Arab rising. To which sheresponded: "Well,they are. They're worried, and they are trying to stop history, whichis a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it offas long as possible."

Clinton's assertion that the repressiveChinese system will eventually collapse brought to mind nothing so muchas Reagan's statement, made to Richard V. Allen in 1977, about America'sgoal in the Cold War: "My idea of American policy toward the SovietUnion is simple, and some would say simplistic," Reagan said. "It isthis: We win and they lose." (See this post from Jim Fallows for more, and better, analysis of these comments.)

Itraveled with Clinton on her most recent trip to Egypt and Tunisia, inMarch, and she stated on many occasions during that trip that she wasmoved by the peaceful rising of pro-democracy protesters. Her commentson China to me suggested strongly that she sees the Arab Spring as theharbinger of a worldwide move toward democracy.

What follows is a transcript of our conversation. It has been slightly condensed, and edited for clarity:

JEFFREY GOLDBERG:I stayed on in Tunisia after you left, and the next day, I wasdowntown, and there was a demonstration forming. And I thought, "Great,young people yelling about something." I couldn't figure out what it wasimmediately. They're in front of the Interior Ministry, and I mix inwith the crowd and I find out that they're demonstrating against anInterior Ministry decision to ban women from wearing the hijab in theirphoto IDs for their national identity cards, and this was ademonstration for the hijab. And I asked -- I said, "Is this somethingthat you would compel?" And they said, "No, but in our vision ofsociety, people would know the role of men and the role of women." And Ithought to myself at this moment, "Man, I wish Hillary Clinton was hereso I could ask her what she thinks of this." THESE revolutions aremoving in some ways that are pleasing to the American mind and some waysthat aren't pleasing.

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON:I have spoken to this on other occasions, because what I want to see isthe freedom to choose for women and men in responsible ways that areprotected by the laws of their society so that -- my model, of course,would be our own country -- women are able to dress as they choose inaccordance with their own personal desires. And I would like to see thatavailable to women everywhere so that there's no compulsion, there's nogovernment coercion. It is a choice, and --

JG: So the red line is compulsion or anything --

HRC: Absolutely.

JG: -- on the continuum of compulsion.

HRC:Absolutely, anything on the continuum of compulsion. Now, I think thereare security issues with, like, the burka, but if you're talking aboutthe hijab, which is the head scarf, for me, that is not a red line. Now,when people start to say, "Oh, but there are certain things womenshould not be permitted to do and the only way we can stop them fromdoing them is by passing laws against them," like you can't drive inSaudi Arabia or you can't vote. They just had a riot in Bangladeshbecause the government wants women to inherit equally. That's a redline, and that infringes on the rights of women, and therefore, I amagainst it and I think any society in the 21st century that is lookingtoward modernization, and certainly if they are claiming to bedemocratic, needs to protect the right to make those choices.

JG: Should we fear the Muslim Brotherhood?

HRC:Well, I think we don't know enough yet to understand exactly whatthey're morphing into. For me, the jury is out. There are some Islamistelements that are coming to the surface in Egypt that I think on justthe face of it are --

JG: Coming out of jails, in fact.

HRC:Coming out of jails, coming out of the shadows, and they are inimicalto a democracy, to the kind of freedom of expression, freedom ofassembly, freedom of conscience that was the aspiration in TahrirSquare.

JG: Is there a situation in which a woman canfind herself in a country where it's not necessarily the law that youhave to wear the hijab, but that a culture is created by the governmentthat would cause you to raise a flag?

I've never understood the division between so-called realists and so-called idealists

HRC:Of course, but that's true in any society. You can go intoneighborhoods in the United States where people dress a certain waybecause they don't want to be out of touch, where boys wear pants downto their knees, which nobody has compelled them to do but they pick upthe cultural norms, or where girls are improperly dressed by my eyes,but that's what they see in the media.

So certainly, there arecultural norms and there are family expectations and there are evenreligious admonitions. But so long as there is not the coercion of thestate, then I'm not going to be pointing fingers at people who makecertain choices that I would not make, but within a democracy should beprotected. But when it comes to political decision-making, then I thinkyou have to be very careful that the people who are in those positionsare understanding of their obligation to protect decisions that they donot necessarily agree with.

It's almost impossible to imagine intoday's world, but there might be a family in our country that doesn'twant their children to learn to drive because they think it's againsttheir religion. Well, that's very different than the family that says wedon't want our children to get medical assistance. And our courts stepin and say, "That's too far even for parental authority." And similarly,in societies, you do not want so-called political decision makers,political parties, or political leaders to be making decisions that aregoing to infringe on the range of opportunities that should be availableto both women and men.

JG: Should the U.S. now be usingthe bully pulpit to go to countries and say, "You know what, we have asystem, liberal democracy, that works really well, and since you're inthis very fluid moment, you should look into this." In other words,engage in the battle of ideas --

HRC: Absolutely.

JG: -- with Islamist parties.

HRC:Well, with everybody. The Islamist parties are the ones that,obviously, we look at with most worry. But there are remnants of oldregimes that are also trying to prevent progress and keep peopleeconomically denied opportunity and politically denied their rights.

Soin this kind of transition, there are ideological foes of democracy,there are economic and commercial foes of democracy, there are politicalfoes of democracy. So I think we need to be competing in the arena ofideas and information.

JG: Is that a little bit neoconish?

HRC:No. I don't think so. I think that's what we believe in. We believethat more speech is better than less speech. We deplored the guy inFlorida who burned the Koran, which is so hard for other people tounderstand, around the world, because they say, "Well, if you thought itwas terrible, you should have stopped it." And we say, "No, weoverwhelmed it with speech deploring it and speech calling for toleranceand respect."

So I testified before Congress a few weeks ago. Isaid we are losing the war of ideas because we are not in the arena theway we were in the Cold War. I don't think that belongs to a politicalparty or a political philosophy in our country. I want to see us outthere pitching our ideas. Now, we need to do it in a way that's morelikely to be understood and received than just asserting it in aconclusory way, but no, we need to be much more engaged. And frankly,just at the moment when there's this ferment for democracy breaking out-- 20 years-plus after the Berlin Wall fell, and we invested so muchmoney and effort over so many decades to get behind the Iron Curtain, totalk about what democracy was, to keep the flag of freedom unfurled inpeople's hearts, to get our messages in through every means of shortwaveradio and smuggling Bibles, and we did all kinds of things just to givepeople a sense that they weren't alone and that maybe their ideas aboutthe human spirit were not subversive -- well, we have cut back on allof that. We don't have those messages going out.

China isstarting an English-speaking television network around the world, Russiais, Al Jazeera. And the BBC is cutting back on its many languageservices around the world. We're not competing. I just feel like we'remissing an opportunity. And I'm well aware of our budget constraints andall of the difficulties we face, but now is the time -- not in anarrogant way, but in a matter-of-fact experiential way.

We havefigured out (in America) how people from every part of the world, everykind of person you can imagine, can live together, can work together. Itwasn't easy. It took a long time, but I think we know a little bitabout how to do it, and we want to offer whatever assistance we can.

JG: The flip side of that question is: Has this moment taught usthat foreign-policy realism, the realist school, is dead? I mean, you'resounding very idealistic --

HRC: No, no. I think I'm veryhardheaded. I've never understood the division between so-calledrealists and so-called idealists. I don't know how you get up in theworld every day, doing what I do, if you don't have some sense ofidealism, because you have to believe that as hard as it is, you'regoing to prevent the dictator from oppressing his people, you're goingto help to stop the war, you're going to figure out a way to get cleanwater to thirsty people and cure kids of disease. And at the same time, Idon't know how you go through the day and expect to be successfulwithout being very hardheaded and realistic. So for me, it's not aneither/or.

When I came in here, I said, look, I think there arethese three trends that we have to pay attention to that are separateand apart from dealing with nations, dealing with regions, dealing withideologies. [First,] power is diffuse. It is no longer the province ofjust governments. There's too much going on in the world today. Peopleknow too much. So we have to start dealing with people on a more directbasis.

JG: The realist camp did hold for 50 years --Scowcroft/Kissinger types -- that dictators, benevolent or otherwise,are the one address we should pay attention to: you should deal with theleader, and let them sort out the problems beneath them.

HRC: Right.

JG: I know you're arguing against the idea that there are discrete streams of foreign-policy thought, but --

HRC: I'm not arguing --

JG: -- but you are talking --

HRC:Look, I'm not arguing against it. I'm just saying that it's noteither/or. So that today, that, to me, would be impossible, so therealist position today is you have to deal with. Realism evolves. Imean, we aren't living in Bismarckian Germany right now. And can youimagine any secretary of state like Henry Kissinger being able to goanywhere secretly today? I don't think so.

JG: You mean allegedly being sick in Pakistan for a week and dashing off to China? You would kind of like that, though.

HRC:Well, of course I would. But it's not possible. The second issue is thedispersal of power through information that was unimagined a decadeago, let alone 50 years ago. So even if you thought you could just dealwith one guy in one country and you could check it off your list ofconcerns, that's impossible now. The way technology has exploded meansthat we are all living in a totally different environment. It haschanged everything. And to pretend otherwise, that there's some kind ofgreat doctrine out there that can be taken from the heavens and imposedupon the global national body, is just not realistic anymore.

JG: I'm not a fan of coherence. We have this bias toward coherence. Everything has to be tied up neatly --

HRC: Everybody wants that.

JG:Everybody wants coherence. Is there, however, some sort of coherentstory line that you can identify that's happened since the poorvegetable seller self-immolated.

HRC: I mean, I'm nowbeing blamed in some Arab capitals for having caused this with my speechin Doha. I mean, because what I saw happening was so clear to me thatwhat was going on was just this movement below the surface, that despitethe leaders' either refusal or blindness to see what was going on, itwas moving. And we have just lost our breath over the last many yearstrying to get people that we worked with ahead of the curve. So I gavethat speech in Doha, and it was fascinating, and I noticed it at thetime. A lot of the government leaders were like, "No, didn't want tohear it." The business leaders, the NGOs, were on the edge of theirseats. They were nodding at each other. They were poking each other inthe arm. I could see it. I could literally see it where I was sitting asI was delivering it, and then during the question-and-answer period.

Sothe leaders might have chosen to be oblivious, but people in thesociety, not just the young people, but people of all walks of life,they knew that there was this beginning of change.

JG: Oneof the obvious contradictions here is that while on the one hand youare pushing for democratic reform in Egypt and Tunisia, places likethat, you have also gone into the monarchy business. We have a lot ofallies -- Jordan and Saudi Arabia, most notably -- who are going to feelsome pressure on the democratic front, and our direct interest is insupporting and keeping these guys on their thrones. Does thiscontradiction bother you?

This administration has probably done more for Israeli security than any administration

HRC:I wouldn't accept the premise. I think that we believe in the samevalues and principles, full stop. We believe that countries shouldempower their people. We believe that people should have certainuniversal rights. We believe there are certain economic systems thatwork better for the vast majority of people than other subsystems. So Ithink we're very consistent. I think that's been a cornerstone ofAmerican foreign policy for at least the last century.

At thesame time, we live in the real world. And there are lots of countriesthat we deal with because we have interests in common. We have certainsecurity issues that we are both looking at. Obviously, in the MiddleEast, Iran is an overwhelming challenge to all of us. We do businesswith a lot of countries whose economic systems or political systems arenot ones we would design or choose to live under. And we have encouragedconsistently, both publicly and privately, reform and recognition andprotection of human rights. But we don't walk away from dealing withChina because we think they have a deplorable human rights record. Wedon't walk away from dealing with Saudi Arabia --

JG: And (the Chinese) are acting very scared right now, in fact.

HRC:Well, they are. They're worried, and they are trying to stop history,which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to holdit off as long as possible.

JG: But what do you do to getthese kings -- for instance, King Abdullah II of Jordan? He's undermore pressure than he's ever been. He's a great ally to America, he'scertainly not a murdering thug like Qaddafi. But he's a king, and he'sgot problems in managing the government. How do you specifically help aperson like that stay ahead of the curve?

HRC: We offer as much support and advice as we possibly can.

JG: It didn't work with Mubarak.

HRC:No, it did not work with Mubarak, and it wasn't for want of trying.President after president, secretary after secretary -- everybody tried.In countries such as Jordan, we are trying to be of practical help. Sofor example, the king has not only some political challenges andeconomic challenges that he is working toward addressing, but Jordan isone of the most water-deprived countries in the world. So a few monthsago, I announced a Millennium Challenge grant of something like $250million to help them deal with their water problems, because I believethat it's not only that we go and sit and say, "You should do this, andyou should do that," which is easy to say, but that we're a real,friend, partner, and ally. And we say, "Look, here's some positive,tangible progress we can help you make." And that's true across theboard where we deal with people who are in the throes of transition andwe think have their hearts in the right place, but face some difficultissues.

JG: One thing I didn't understand was this Basharal-Assad moment, when you called him a reformer, or said he was beingseen by others as a reformer. There is always going to be plasticity orstrategic hypocrisy in the way you have to deal with the world. Butshouldn't we be blowing some of these winds of change in the directionof Damascus and Tehran as well?

HRC: We don't have toblow. The winds are blowing. There's no stopping them. And what we havetried to do with him is to give him an alternative vision of himself andSyria's future. So when a number of the members of Congress who havegone over to Syria come back and say both publicly and privately, "Wethink he really wants to reform, but he's trying to put together thepolitical pieces to be able to do that," I think it's worth remindinghim of that. And since I'm not going to be on a phone conversation withhim, and I'm not going to fly to Damascus, I think that's one way ofcommunicating with him. He's got to make the decisions, and thus far, itdoesn't look like it's heading in the right direction. But there wascertainly a lot of hope that he would begin to introduce the kinds ofreforms that would help Syria get ahead of the curve.

JG: Would you be sad if his regime disappeared?

HRC: It depends upon what replaces it.

JG: Talk about Tehran a little bit, because they are this loomingshadow over the entire Middle East. Every aspect of every problem thatyou're dealing with has an Iran component. They're scared, and they'realso seeing some opportunities, obviously. It's not a bad thing for themto see the rise of Islamic parties. But how do you box them in, movethem toward actual reform, encourage the people to rise up as they didin 2009?

HRC: Well, I regret deeply the way that theregime in Iran is treating their own people, the level of hypocrisy thatthey have demonstrated in responding to the uprisings across theregion. They have demonstrated quite a talent for totalitarianism, andthey have imposed a relentless mind-control mechanism that has begun togo even into what is in their textbooks, what you can learn, what youcan talk about. That is so contrary to the kind of mentality of themodern Iranian from everything we know, but it is a scary place now tolive in.

JG: What can we do?

HRC: Well, Ithink we're doing it. At first, in 2009, there were a lot of veryknowledgeable Iranians inside and outside of the country who said,"Don't overstate it, don't oversell it, this has to be homegrown, don'tturn it into something that America is doing, we need to be able tostand on our own feet." Sort of the same way Tahrir Square was: "This isour revolution; everybody else get out of our way." And the force withwhich the regime just slammed that down and has continued to morph into akind of military dictatorship, with the Revolutionary Guard basicallyin charge, has made it even more imperative that we do everything we canto support those who are standing up for human rights and realdemocracy in Iran.

JG: I guess the way to ask it is: Can we capitalize on the Arab Spring?

HRC:I think so, and I think we are. I think we are very clearly saying thatthe Iranians are trying to take credit for something they had not onlynothing to do with, but they are exactly in opposition to and should begiven no credence whatsoever.

JG: Stipulated that you getit coming and going on these questions, do you -- and I just want tocome to two final things on the Middle East peace process -- butstipulated that somebody in Egypt is going to think of you as the bestfriend of Mubarak and somebody in the Gulf is going to think of you assort of a wild-eyed Wolfowitz or something --

HRC: You can say I'm wild-eyed but don't compare me to that. (Laughter.)

JG:But it's interesting because you hear, not only here but in the WhiteHouse also, people are saying, "Oh, you guys are so slow on Yemen or soslow on this" --

HRC: I mean, my doctrine is the Goldilocks Doctrine -- not too hot, not too cold, just right.

JG:I get that. But let me come back to this: How do you deal withhypocrisy, meaning that you're going to deal with one country one way,and another in another way?

HRC: I don't. I honestlybelieve that each place is different. There are trends, but I thinkfollowing the fall of the Berlin Wall, how Germany responded and Polandresponded, you couldn't say that there was one template that fit all.

JG: That was an easier one, though.

HRC:I don't know that it was. I mean, we all are prisoners of our ownexperience. And you can look at transitions to democracy in LatinAmerica and in Europe -- look at Spain and Portugal. There's no two thatare exactly alike. There may be common trends, and you hope you get tothe same point at the end of the journey, but Yemen is a very differentcountry than Libya, in every way you can imagine.

JG:Come to the Middle East peace process for one second. The Israelis and alot of their supporters in America will say, "See, the Arab revoltproves that the people were not upset about Palestinians; they're upsetabout a lack of accountability in our governments, etc., economicopportunity --"

HRC: They're upset about both.

JG: How related to the Arab Spring is the Middle East peace process? And how could it affect it in adverse or positive ways?

HRC:Well, I think a lot of it is sequencing, Jeff. Right now, people inEgypt, for example, are very focused on their own future. That doesn'tmean that the Arab-Israeli conflict doesn't come up, because it came upwhen I was there, but it didn't come up as the only subject peoplewanted to talk to me about, which was sometimes the case in the past. Itcame up as, "Okay, for now we're going to honor the Camp David accords,but you know we're going to have to take a look at this when we get anew government and we get more stable, we figure out what ourrelationship really is. We're not going to be an automatic supporter ofthe peace process. But right now, we've got to get our economy going,we've got to get our political transition done."

So it's not likeit's off the table. It's just stuck in a corner until other matters gettended to. But if you talk to King Abdullah of Jordan, it is still verymuch on the mind of Jordanians, because they live with it every singleday.

JG: So lack of progress could have an adverse effect on --

HRC:This is nothing that I haven't said many times and told my Israelifriends, because I love Israel and I feel so strongly about the future.Right now, you have a secular leadership in the West Bank that has madeeconomic progress and has made security progress. You have an uncertainenvironment that Israel is now having to cope with, and I do not in anyway discount how difficult that is. That has happened in Egypt [forone], and you've seen Israeli commentators saying they're not so surethat change in Syria is in Israel's interest.

JG: I was wondering if that had some influence on the way this government here has been talking about [Syria] --

HRC:Well, it certainly didn't escape my notice. You have a situation inLebanon that is uncertain. So Israel has real problems that it has todeal with in new ways now, with all of the changes going on. I stillbelieve it is very much in Israel's interests and Israel's security toreally turn their attention to the peace process and to hammer out anagreement under appropriate safeguards for Israel's security with thePalestinian Authority.

JG: One final question on thatsubject: About four years ago, we were talking in your Senate officeabout Israel, and how to get them to make the concessions necessary forpeace. One of the things you said that struck me was that, in yourunderstanding of the Israeli mind-set, the Israelis will move on theseissues when they feel the warm embrace of the United States --

HRC: Right.

JG:-- when they know that somebody is behind them. And when they feelalienated from the United States, as they did for the first couple yearsof this administration, they're less apt to move. Does that still holdtrue, or has Prime Minister Netanyahu just shown no desire to move, witha warm embrace or without a warm embrace?

HRC: I think he has some very serious concerns that have to be addressed.

JG: National-security concerns or coalition concerns?

HRC:National security is the first and foremost of his concerns. Butobviously, he's in politics. I've been in politics. You also have toworry about your political position. But this administration, the Obamaadministration, has probably done more for Israeli security in as short aperiod of time as any administration in the past. The kind ofassistance and support that we have given to Israel in order to assuagesome of the legitimate security concerns that Israel has, the work thatwe are doing to try to contain Iran, the sanctions that we, much toeveryone's amazement, were able to negotiate, the pressure that we'vebrought to bear on Iran -- we have really been closely coordinating onkey issues that are fundamental to Israel's security. So I think thatthat has to be the way we're judged, because we certainly have deliveredon that.