By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Supporters of liberalizing trade ties with China are optimistic for their chances in the Senate after the hotly contested measure won a difficult vote in the House.
But, while the bill enjoys wide bipartisan support there, Senate rules also make it far easier for opponents to slow matters or create parliamentary havoc.
The bill is expected to be voted on in the Senate next month.
Even as supporters were celebrating Wednesday's 237-197 House victory, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asserted: "I do not intend to allow the Senate to rubber-stamp the president's plan to reward the Chinese communists."
Helms has blocked or delayed key treaties or other foreign relations matters in the past, and supporters were not taking Helms' threats idly.
"Delay is dangerous," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a leading Senate sponsor of the China trade bill.
Baucus estimated that no more than 20 of the Senate's 100 members were likely to oppose the bill once it gets to a floor vote.
The bill would give China the same low-tariff privileges that the United States routinely accords its other trading partners. For the past two decades, China has gotten these benefits - previously called "most favored nation" status - annually.
The bill also would put in force a landmark market-opening pact negotiated with China in November as part of its entry into the World Trade Organization.
That pact would reduce Chinese tariffs, abolish Chinese import quotas and licenses and allow foreign businesses to invest in Chinese banking, telecommunications and other companies.
Unlike treaties and ambassadorial nominations, Helm's Foreign Relations Committee does not have primary authority over trade matters.
That's up to the Senate Finance Committee, and it already has voted 18-1 in support of the China trade bill.
"We need to review what the House has sent us, but then I expect us to take our turn at bat," said Sen. William Roth, R-Del., the Finance Committee chairman.
However, some changes made by the House - including adding a watchdog commission to monitor human rights and labor practices in China - could give Helms a chance to assert joint jurisdiction.
Saying he didn't "particularly relish raining on their parade," Helms said in a statement that there would be Senate votes "perhaps uncomfortable votes - on a range of issues relating to China."
He did not elaborate. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., is a strong supporter of the China trade bill.
Wednesday's vote was a big foreign policy victory for Clinton, congressional Republicans and corporate America - and a defeat for organized labor and their Democratic allies in the House.
Clinton welcomed the House vote as a "historic step toward continued prosperity in America, reform in China and peace in the world."
He said he would put as much effort into winning Senate approval as he had in the House.
"If the Senate votes as the House has just done, to extend permanent normal trade relations with China, it will open new doors of trade for America and new hope for change in China," he said in the Rose Garden.
China also welcomed the vote, but a spokesman for the Trade Ministry called the bill's creation of commission to monitor human rights in China an unacceptable interference with the country's internal affairs.
The final vote was 19 more than the 218 votes needed for House passage. Voting for the measure were 164 Republicans and 73 Democrats.
Labor waged one of its most intense campaigns ever against the bill.
Clinton worked the phones throughout the afternoon to nail down wavering Democrats, supporters said. Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the likely GOP presidential nominee, also worked to win over wavering Republicans.
The bill has not played a major role in the presidential race, since it is supported by both Bush and Vice President Al Gore.
But labor has threatened to make it an issue in the November congressional campaigns.
"Congress has turned its back on the American manufacturing base and America's working families," Teamsters President James P. Hoffa said.
"There are Teamster families in every congressional district in America, and those families vote," Hoffa said in a statement. "Those who would oppose these families have done so at their own political peril."
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said Americans "will not judge these members well," speaking of those who supported the bill. "And I fear that history will not judge them well either."
The bills are H.R. 4444 and S. 2277
On the Net: White House site: http://www.chinapntr.gov AFL-CIO site: http://www.aflcio.org/publ/press2000/pr0222.htm:
