By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration, insisting that permanent trade benefits for China must be unconditional, told Congress today that it will oppose any effort to attach strings to the process.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart E. Eizenstat said it is "critically important" that Congress not seek to amend the China-trade legislation proposed by the president.
Eizenstat appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a day after the legislation got a big boost when House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced he would bring it to the House for a vote the week of May 22-26.
That is the timetable the administration and congressional supporters of the bill had sought, fearing that delaying a vote into the summer would entangle the issue with election campaigns.
A Senate vote has not yet been scheduled, but sponsors predict the bill will pass there by a wide margin. However, its fate in the House remains in doubt, given a lack of enthusiastic Democratic support.
The bill would grant China "permanent normal trade relations," ending annual congressional votes on Beijing's trade status. China is one of only a handful of countries on which such annual votes are still taken.
The permanent status would ease China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based organization that sets rules for world trade.
Labor unions, environmental groups, and some human-rights organizations do not want to give up what they view as leverage over China from the annual review process. Labor also fears that increased trade with China will hurt U.S. jobs.
But supporters claim that the measure, along with the related entry of China into the WTO, will open vast Chinese markets to U.S. exporters and farmers.
In an attempt to find a common ground, some lawmakers - including House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. - have looked into a way of combining the trade measure with some form of continued annual review of China's worker protection and human rights progress.
But Eizenstat said, "It is critically important to us that China's accession (to the world organization) be unconditional." He said he knew there were "a number of interests in Congress on both sides of the aisle" who wanted to find a formula for linking the trade benefits to China's performance.
He said the administration was talking to members about "continuing oversight" of China's progress. But, he said, "no conditions."
Meanwhile, Eizenstat sought to make a strong case for approving the China-trade measure. "The case is overwhelming," he said. "We make no commercial concessions. China makes them all."
Both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee held hearings today on the subject.
Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, told the Finance panel he recognized there were "deeply held views on both sides of the issue."
Still, he said, rejection of the legislation would "put American workers, farmers and businesses at a great disadvantage in the fastest-growing major economy in the world." Rejection would also "deal a serious setback to China's reformers," Hormats said.
"Economically, it's a no brainer," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Wednesday in an interview with AP editors and reporters. "It's an opening up of China."
Still, Albright conceded that "we have to keep working it" to build support, given labor's strong opposition.
"We're looking to ultimate victory," Hastert told reporters as he announced the timetable.
In the past, Hastert had indicated he wouldn't move toward a vote unless he was certain of getting 90-100 Democratic votes. Democratic sponsors have said that they doubt that they can deliver more than 70-80 of the chamber's 211 Democrats.
Furthermore, they can't look to the usual leaders for help. Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., remains undecided on the bill, spokeswoman Laura Nichols said on Wednesday. And the No. 2 Democratic leader, Minority Whip David Bonior of Michigan, is a leader of the opposition.
Bonior claims that as many as 150 Democrats may end up voting "no."
Hastert dropped any mention of a Democratic threshold of support in his Wednesday remarks, cheering supporters.:
