Washington Post / Editorial
BARRING AN upset in the Senate, the administration's China victory ensures America growing access to the world's most populous market. That is a big achievement in itself; it more than justifies giving up the option of trade sanctions on China--especially since that option was never actually exercised during the two decades when Congress theoretically had it. But last week's House vote also represents a big achievement in ways that go beyond China.
First, it shows that a determined administration can sway Congress--even an administration that has entered its eighth year, and even when Congress is preoccupied by the prospect of an unusually close election. Six months ago, in the wake of the administration's failure to push the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty through the Senate, the Clinton team seemed incapable of getting its way on big international issues, and sages lamented the lost spirit of bipartisanship. But the White House was admirably focused this time, and the president was assisted not only by Gov. George W. Bush, the putative Republican presidential nominee, but also by Rep. Tom DeLay, one of his most intemperate critics in the House Republican leadership.
Second, the China victory shows that trade protectionism can be defeated. The labor unions, which had lobbied successfully against fast-track trade negotiating authority in 1997, thought they were on good ground this time. Thanks to some impressive victories in the 1998 elections, their political stock was high; the prospect of a close House race favored them; and China's human-rights record brought some pro-trade members of Congress into their coalition. Despite all these advantages, the unions lost decisively. Coming on top of the recent passage of the Africa and Caribbean trade deal, the China vote suggests that the old pattern of trade politics, in which deals such as NAFTA and WTO tended to pass in the end, may at last be returning.
Having supported China's entry into the WTO, both Mr. Clinton and his two aspiring successors have a responsibility to manage the consequences. They must prove to China's critics that they have not gone soft on China's abuse of its own people, nor on its military ambitions. At the same time, they must ensure that the WTO survives the challenge of digesting a vast nonmarket economy.
The WTO's legitimacy is already assailed by assorted anti-globalization critics. It suffers from the European Union's refusal in a couple of high-profile cases to abide by its rulings. Its admirable leader, Mike Moore of New Zealand, is hamstrung by last year's compromise that confined him to three years in office. China's entry into the WTO could overwhelm the institution, especially if Beijing is slow in pushing through the hard reforms that it has signed up for, and if that slowness prompts Europe and the United States to file a flood of anti-China complaints to the WTO's dispute-settlement tribunal. In these coming times of turbulence, the WTO badly needs U.S. leaders who will stand up for it.
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