China's request to resume trade talks next week suggests that the imposition of trade sanctions announced by the U.S. on Saturday has succeeded in getting the attention of China's leaders.
If the administration must have a trade war with China -- against the interests of both countries -- it has chosen the right issue. This is not political grandstanding but a proper linkage of trade to trade issues.
China's exploding economy needs to be brought into the world trading system, including the embryonic World Trade Organization, successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The United States should be the member of the club introducing the newcomer, but China must play by the rules. That's the point of the WTO.
China may argue that as a poor developing country, it cannot yet abide by rules designed for developing countries. Whatever merit may reside in that rationale evaporates when used to justify pirating computer software, video disks and other high-tech esoterica created at great expense by American firms entitled to profit from their investments in talent and technology.
Upholding the rights of intellectual property by trademark, patent and copyright is a principle of importance, not only for all of China's trading partners but for its own inventors, authors, composers, computer scientists, film makers and engineers.
The purpose of administration policy is not be to have an escalating trade war but to cure the problem. Hence, U.S. Special Trade Representative Mickey Kantor's gestures in easing some U.S. demands. China is going to remain an awkward giant for some time. Managing the relationship during the evolution of a post-Deng Xiaoping ethos will be difficult. Jiang Zemin, the anointed heir, has all the titles of a traditional Communist emperor but not as yet the personal authority. He may never acquire that.
During the transition, China may well prove difficult to deal with on matters of common interest. That would be no reason for the U.S. administration either to give away the store, or to quit seeking accommodation.
The U.S. seeks trade reciprocity and restraint on China's international conduct, especially on such destabilizing matters as Taiwan and weapons sales. Americans will judge China's domestic human rights, which can best be kept in the spotlight by advocacy organizations outside government.
While those interests are pursued, the U.S. must try to engage the world's most spectacular growth economy in the rules that others undertake to follow. The object is not to kick China out of, but to lure it into, the world trading community.