By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A deeply divided U.S. House of Representatives was expected on Wednesday to narrowly approve a fiercely contested China trade bill, in what would be a monumental victory for President Clinton, pro-business Republicans in Congress and economic reformers in Beijing.
As the debate started, Republican and Democratic vote-counters said they believed they had at least the 218 votes needed to grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China in a do-or-die vote pitting organized labor against corporate America in one of the biggest legislative battles of Clinton's presidency.
"The process is moving, the momentum is moving ... I think it will pass," Commerce Secretary William Daley told CBS' "Early Show", even as labor unions launched a final lobbying blitz on Capitol Hill with dire warnings that passage of PNTR would undermine human rights in China and cost hundreds of thousands of American workers their jobs.
But the bill's opponents remained defiant, saying the vote was still too close to call. "I have confidence that when the debate is finished today that we will do very well," said David Bonior, the House's No. 2 Democrat and a leading PNTR opponent, in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America."
Final passage of the trade bill -- which the White House calls its top legislative priority for Clinton's final year in office -- would do away with annual reviews of Beijing's trade status and permanently guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets as products from nearly every other nation.
China would, in turn, open a wide range of markets, from agriculture to telecommunications, to U.S. businesses under the terms of a landmark trade agreement signed in November 1999 ushering Beijing into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
To bring enough Democrats on board, Republican leaders agreed to set up a watchdog commission that would monitor human rights in China and could recommend WTO-consistent sanctions, such as a cessation of U.S. Export-Import Bank and U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. support for Beijing.
So far, 68 Democrats have publicly declared their support for the bill, according to a Reuters poll. Congressional aides said that figure would climb to a little over 70 by day's end, just enough to ensure House passage with 150 Republican backers.
Republican vote-counters said they would meet or beat that target, and aides said they hoped to build a small cushion in case a few lawmakers caved in to pressure from organized labor and switched their votes to oppose the bill.
PNTR enjoys broad bipartisan support in the Senate, where approval is expected in June.
Democrats Divided
Though allied with the White House on most legislative issues, trade bills have long divided Clinton's party and two out of three Democrats in the House were expected to vote against PNTR in a show of support for labor unions -- a key constituency ahead of the November congressional election.
The AFL-CIO labor federation and other powerful U.S. unions have demanded that Congress keep annual reviews of China's trade status in place to put pressure on Beijing to improve human rights and labor standards.
They called the proposed human rights commission "toothless", and have threatened to withdraw support for Democratic lawmakers who vote for the trade bill. The United Auto Workers union said it may even endorse prospective Green Party candidate Ralph Nader because of dissatisfaction with Vice President Al Gore, who favors the pact.
PNTR-backers, led by the White House and Republican leaders in Congress, say the trade bill would spur economic and eventually political reform in Beijing and benefit U.S. companies eager to tap into the vast Chinese marketplace, potentially the world's largest with 1.3 billion consumers.
"The United States gets enormous new access to the Chinese market," U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told ABC. "If we were to reject this bill, the only people who would get the benefits of those provisions are the Japanese, the Europeans -- the people we compete with."
To bolster support from black and Hispanic lawmakers ahead of the China vote, the White House and Republican leaders expedited passage of an African trade bill, and backed a plan to attract investment to poor U.S. communities.
Several lawmakers demanded and received special favors in exchange for backing PNTR, including Martin Frost, a Democratic leader in the House. Frost announced his support for the pact on Tuesday after winning the White House's assistance in keeping a defense plant in his district.
Two lawmakers from Texas, who will vote for the trade bill, expect the White House's help with an oil project. But when talks with Minnesota Democratic Rep. James Oberstar broke down over a plan to protect iron ore workers in his district, the lawmaker promptly announced his opposition to the pact.
The White House dismissed reports of horse-trading as "grossly exaggerated," saying the key to passage was the human rights commission, and provisions guarding against import surges.:
