Why is business so mad at Harry Wu? In large part, he’s become a lightning rod for anxieties about the parlous state of U.S.-China relations, now mired in disputes over Taiwan, Chinese missile sales and human-rights abuses. Some business people worry that the political salvos are sinking big deals–like the bids of Chrysler and Ford to form a minivan venture with South China Motor Corp., a $1 billion contract that went to Mercedes-Benz last month. Last year the United States did $48 billion in two-way trade with China–its sixth biggest trading partner. For a top executive at a major sports manufacturing company, China represents his firm’s main market for short-term growth worldwide. So, “trouble there goes straight to our bottom line. The scariest thing in China right now is not the inflation rate or whether [paramount leader] Deng Xiaoping is dying,” he says. It’s the volatility in U.S.-China relations. “Harry Wu gives us real cause for concern.”
Wu’s arrest is perhaps most unsettling to the Chinese business community overseas. Like Harry Wu, many Chinese-American businessmen have citizenship of recent vintage. “Basically, what the Chinese government is saying is, your passport doesn’t matter,” says a U.S. trader in Beijing. “We’ll get you if we want you.” Wu certainly has some sympathizers among business people. But even those supporters worry about the effects of Wu’s obsessive mission against the Communist regime. “No crusade by a single person should affect the stability of U.S.-China relations,” says Stanley Lubman, a San Francisco lawyer and China specialist.
Recently the U.S.-China Business Council took the unusual step of pressing the Chinese Foreign Ministry to set Wu free–something they haven’t done for other dissidents. They’ve also been to call on the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., as reluctant crusaders for Wu. They don’t argue his case in the name of human rights but in the name of mutual profit. The business community is hoping that Secretary of State Warren Christopher will smooth the waters when he meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen this week in Brunei. No matter how mad they are at him, things won’t get better for U.S. business until they get better for Harry Wu.
