SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
As the congressional vote nears on granting China permanent normal trade status with the United States, the Clinton administration has smartened up its strategy for obtaining yes votes from dubious, mostly Democratic, lawmakers. It's no longer just about opening markets for U.S. businesses such as Boeing, Microsoft and apple growers. The administration's emphasis now is on the importance of engaging China constructively for national security purposes.
That's where the emphasis should have been all along, because that's what really matters.
Even former presidents Gerald Ford, George Bush and Jimmy Carter joined together to sound this theme yesterday, cautioning Congress that rejecting the pact "would encourage deeper tensions between Beijing and Taiwan and diminish our ability to work for Asian stability."
With all due respect to our homegrown exporters, though, they've survived without full access to China's markets until now, and they'll continue to survive with or without China's consumers. With respect to U.S. labor unions fearing a loss of jobs to China, any such losses over time pale in comparison to the national security benefits of having China become a normal nation.
As a full-fledged member of the international community, China over time will find it convenient to accept international human rights and labor norms. As an outcast, it won't.
"Rejecting permanent normal trade relations would be the worst possible blow to the best possible hope we have had in 30 years to encourage positive change in China," national security adviser Samuel Berger said in a recent speech at Columbia University.
If Congress persists in its obstinate insistence that China be singled out each year for a review of its human rights record as a condition of trade with the U.S., two unwelcome outcomes can be expected.
First, arguments of belligerent Chinese hardliners that China should not join the WTO and that the United States should be viewed as an enemy will be bolstered. This is not the way to ensure peaceful relations or a normalized China. Peaceful relations are the overarching concern because the U.S. has pledged to protect Taiwan from Chinese incursions.
Surely it won't be Chinese hardliners who lessen repression in China. Yet Congress seems bent on undercutting Chinese reformers who could affect the very changes Congress seeks. If the congressional review had improved human rights, it would be one thing. But it hasn't worked, and little wonder: It's ritualized insult. Anyone who thinks insult will change China is more interested in insult than in progress.
The second outcome is that China is going to be admitted to the World Trade Organization, with or without consent of Congress. But if the United States doesn't treat China as it does other nations, U.S. exporters will not benefit from having China in the WTO. So trade advantages will flow to U.S. competitors.
And that will hurt U.S. workers.
c 1999-2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved.:
