San Jose Mercury News / EDITORIAL
The opinion of the Mercury News
With Clinton's proposal for oversight, the case for normal trade relations is even more compelling THE Chinese can't be trusted, say opponents of permanent normal trade relations with China. They argue that Congress needs the leverage of annual trade reviews to hold China accountable for human rights violations and trade dumping. Last week, the Clinton administration responded with a proposal that would give the United States quick and accurate information about allegations of trade and labor violations and a timetable for acting on them.
The administration's plan clearly is a pitch to wavering House Democrats. The vote on normalizing trade relations is only two weeks away and still in doubt. But the plan is also a credible, if belated, response to legitimate questions about the impact of China's pending admission to the World Trade Organization.
Clinton has offered to establish an office in the Commerce Department, with a dozen specialists, to monitor China's compliance with the trade agreement it negotiated with America. For the first time, a deputy assistant secretary would be named to oversee trade with a single nation. The office would function as a rapid-response team to investigate charges of trade violations, with deadlines for dealing with them.
The trade office wouldn't deal with human rights and workers' rights issues. But a separate monitoring agency, appointed by Congress and the president, would. Rep. Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat proposing the idea, says it would function like the former Helsinki Commission, which monitored human rights in the Soviet Union and issued its findings annually. It could recommend sanctions against China if they were appropriate under WTO rules.
That's a big if, as critics point out, since human rights issues don't fall under the WTO's jurisdiction. But the commission would serve as a conscience and would provide the basis for diplomatic pressure on China.
Opponents of permanent normal trade relations, which include labor unions and church groups, argue further that China would violate rights with impunity once it's out from under the thumb of annual reviews of Congress.
But that argument overstates Congress' leverage. Trade sanctions are a blunt instrument. For all its bluster, Congress has wisely never withheld normal trade benefits from China, even after the Tiananmen Square massacre. At least under the WTO, there are formal channels for resolving trade disputes and international laws that China must follow. Under Levin's proposal, there would be continuous monitoring of China's human rights record.
Congress can't prevent China from joining the WTO, but it can kill the bilateral trade agreement that the Clinton administration and the Chinese negotiated as part of China's admission process. Congress would do that by clinging to the annual reviews of China's trade status -- a violation of WTO rules.
If it refuses to grant permanent normal trade relations, Congress will deny American firms the favorable tariff reductions that the United States negotiated with China. The Chinese already have low trade barriers to American markets; the biggest losers would be U.S. farmers, high tech, telecommunications and banking industries, which could forfeit billions of dollars in trade to European and Japanese competitors.
The repercussions would be severe. A defeat of permanent normal trade relations would strengthen the hard-liners within the Communist Party in China who oppose liberalizing trade and broadening human rights. It would undermine Sino-U.S. relations and complicate an already tense standoff between China and Taiwan.
The latest proposals for monitoring Chinese exports and human rights may help the administration persuade holdouts in the House to grant permanent trade status. They add one more element to the overriding and compelling argument for permanent normal trade and China's admission to the WTO.:
