Washington Post
THE CLINTON administration suggests that Congress should bless China's entry into the World Trade Organization because not doing so would anger the Chinese--as though Beijing's emotions should determine the argument. It pleads that snubbing China after long negotiations on WTO would make America seem untrustworthy--as though Congress should automatically sign off on any deal an administration presents to it. Finally, the administration declares that expanded trade will lead China inexorably toward democratization and better human rights. This may prove right in the long run, but it's by no means certain.
Nevertheless, the House should say yes to permanent normal trade relations today, because there are better arguments to be made--and because the administration's opponents are even less convincing. China will enter the WTO with or without congressional blessing. Once it does so, it will grant easier access to its markets to other WTO members who have approved permanent normal trading status for China. If Congress votes yes, the United States will benefit. If it votes no, only its economic competitors will benefit. Labor unions and other opponents of a yes vote argue that the United States will not be hurt because China will ignore this year's vote and honor an obscure 1979 trade deal instead. This is a stretch, both legally and politically.
Moreover, the benefits that China offers are substantial. Whereas the deal does not require the United States to cut a single tariff or quota, China is cutting scads of them. The unions claim that the promised export opportunities will prove illusory, because China will not honor the agreement. But even a deal honored only in a patchy manner would help American business more than no deal. More plausibly, the unions argue that U.S. corporations will take advantage of China's openness more in order to build factories there--and export back to the United States--than to send U.S.-made products to China. Some of both undoubtedly will occur. Even so, allowing Airbus rather than Boeing to export from China won't do American workers any good.
Finally, Congress accomplishes nothing by withholding permanent normal trading status. Until now, such status has been granted annually, and human rights organizations argue that an annual vote gives Congress influence over China's behavior. But Congress has never denied China normal trade relations, not even in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre. The threat of doing so has not improved Chinese behavior. Once China is inside the WTO, congressional trade threats are even less likely to work. China would be able to retaliate with sanctions of its own--and it would be able to wave a legal opinion from the WTO in support of its behavior.
China's dictatorship bullies and tortures its own people and habitually threatens America's allies in Taiwan. It may well pose a growing military threat to U.S. interests as its economy develops. Congress should resolve to deal with those issues in meaningful ways. When China jails dissidents, the United States should protest forcefully. When China threatens Taiwan, the United States should reaffirm its tacit commitment to defend it. But when China opens its economy, the United States can afford to respond positively. Congress should ignore the administration's bad arguments and vote to give up the annual trade review because it achieves nothing. And Congress should welcome the real benefits to American corporations and workers that would come from expanded Chinese trade.
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