DEBATING CHINA TRADE
May 19, 2000

Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives debate whether China should be granted permanent normal trade relations, less than a week before the vote, after a background report.

Online NewsHour Special Report: The China Trade Debate Q&A: PNTR Debate: * Free Trade * Human Rights * Labor Dec. 1, 1999: A discussion on China, trade and democracy Nov. 18, 1999: An interview with U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky Nov. 15, 1999: A discussion on the U.S.-China Trade deal. July 30, 1999: Beijing cracks down on the meditation group Falun Gong. Feb. 26, 1999: The U.S. State Dept. releases its yearly human rights report. Dec. 30, 1998: A report on muzzling dissent in China. June 29, 1998: President Clinton challenges China on human rights. Online NewsHour Special Reports: The WTO and Global Trade The World Bank & IMF Complete NewsHour coverage of Asia     AFL-CIO Cato Institute Human Rights Watch International Brotherhood of Teamsters United States-China Business Council The House Democratic Leader	RAY SUAREZ: The second big political story this week: the China trade bill. Kwame Holman begins our report. KWAME HOLMAN: With a predicted close vote looming in the House next week, the Clinton administration stepped up its campaign of lobbying members to grant China permanent normal trade relations with the U.S. That would replace the annual designation Congress has voted over the last two decades. Yesterday the White House hosted Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who argued passing the measure would promote China's entry into the World Trade Organization. ALAN GREENSPAN: China's progress towards prosperity and accession into the WTO will create new opportunities for American businesses and farmers. KWAME HOLMAN: But the president acknowledged the votes aren't yet there. PRESIDENT CLINTON: This legislation now goes before the full Congress. All the former presidents support it, along with former secretaries of state, defense, trade, transportation, national security advisers, chairs of the joint chiefs of staff, religious leaders, many of the courageous people in China fighting for human rights and the rule of law. Momentum is building, but we've still got a challenging fight. KWAME HOLMAN: Part of that challenge comes from House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt. He recently announced his widely expected decision to oppose the permanent trade designation for China. Gephardt spoke to reporters yesterday. REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: I understand the argument on the other side -- that trade alone solves the problem. Twenty years of more trade with China has not solved the problem. In fact, I would argue to you that their performance on human rights is worse today than it's been in the past.
	Democratic Party resistance
	KWAME HOLMAN: That opposition is echoed by many of Gephardt's Democratic colleagues. Yesterday on the capitol grounds, David Bonior, the Democratic whip, led a protest against the legislation in which House members were joined by Chinese dissidents. They paraded a 200-foot chain to symbolize the plight of China's political prisoners. But momentum for the measure appeared to grow steadily this week on Capitol Hill. Republican Henry Hyde, chairman of the Judiciary committee, and a leading advocate for human and religious rights in China, announced his decision on Wednesday. And earlier in the week, Charles Rangel, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said he too will vote "yes" on China trade, even though most of his party's traditional allies in the labor movement are against the measure. REP. CHARLES RANGEL: It is very difficult for me to understand why this time and this place the unions have decided to make this a litmus test. But I have to say that I had to do what I think was in the interests of my constituents. KWAME HOLMAN: And House Republican leaders now have agreed to add to the trade bill a provision that attracted several other "undecideds" to the pro-China trade side. The bipartisan measure was coauthored by Michigan Democrat Sander Levin of the Ways and Means Committee. It would set up a commission to monitor China's human rights practices even after trade with the U.S. is normalized. And on Wednesday, campaigning in Washington state, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush weighed in in support of the trade legislation. While passage in the Senate is a virtual certainty, the House tally could be decided by dozens of members who remain undeclared. One of them is New York Democrat Gregory Meeks, who traveled to China on an administration-sponsored tour late last month. Today, Meeks said he will announce his decision on Tuesday, just as the House debate on permanent normal trade relations with China gets underway.
	The debate in Congress
	RAY SUAREZ: And Elizabeth Farnsworth takes it from there. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And with me are two congressional leaders who are working to roundup votes on the China trade bill: David Bonior, Democrat of Michigan and House Minority whip, opposes the legislation; and David Dreier, Republican of California, and chairman of the rules committee, supports the bill. Congressman Dreier, what are you saying to your undecided colleagues, what's your key argument? REP. DAVID DREIER, (R) California: The fact is, we over the past several decades have actually seen improvement in the situation in China. In fact, the single most powerful force for positive change in the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization has been economic reform. There are problems. There are very serious problems that need to be addressed. But as we look at the United States' role as the paramount global leader, and the importance of maintaining economic prosperity, it's important for us to grant permanent normal trade relations. This, unlike the annual battles that we have had in the past on normal trade, actually pries open a market with 1.3 billion consumers and creates a great opportunity for U.S. workers to export goods and services to this emerging economy. And I believe that history has shown that bringing about an improvement in the economy of different nations has dramatically improved political freedom. So the interdependence of economic and political freedom are key, and I believe that we have a very serious and important responsibility here. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Congressman Bonior, what is your key argument to undecided colleagues? REP. DAVID BONIOR, Minority Whip: Let me play off what David just said, because I don't think that history shows an interdependence. We've had two decades of trade with China on. China is a brutal, suppressive, authoritarian police state. If you challenge the government on religious grounds, political freedom grounds, on questions of worker rights, you will end up in prison, where now tens of thousands of people are in the gulag today. There is no documented literature that you can cite that says that just because you have a free market you will have a free society. Quite the contrary, often in places like Chile, with Pinochet where you had market reforms you ended up with repressive government, or Indonesia with Suharto. What we need is to keep the pressure on China on these basic issues of human rights, religious rights. Religious suppression in China today, Elizabeth, is the worst it's been since 20 years ago, it's terrible. People are being locked up. That is why the bishops, Catholic Bishops Conference has come out against this proposal. That is why the religious commission that was appointed by the president and the congressional leaders recently said no to this agreement until human right and religious rights improve.
	Human rights monitoring
	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman Dreier, just briefly, I'm going to break some of this down -- there's a new human rights monitoring plan. Briefly explain it, what it would do and why it's important to get this passed in your view. REP. DAVID DREIER: Elizabeth, it's a very important aspect of this legislation. We're all concerned about human rights, and I agree with much of what David has said with an important exception. Look at Chile today, we maintain strong economic ties and we see recognition of human right and political pluralism -- the same in Argentina and in Asia. South Korea and Taiwan had repressive regimes, we maintained strong economic ties, and we today see pluralistic societies in all of those countries. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The human rights monitoring. REP. DAVID DREIER: On the human rights monitoring, I think it's important to note that we're establishing a Helsinki-type commission under the Bereuter-Levin proposal, which will allow us to have a chance to look at that issue and will have a combination of Congressional and executive branch representatives who serve on that. And then we will be doing everything that we can to encourage the administration to diplomatically deal with this issue, which is the best way to address it. And I believe again that we shouldn't consider withdrawing the one good thing, because while there are many serious problems we have to recognize that there are dissidents, like Wang Xian Tau, who was one of the Tiananmen organizers -- ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I'll give you a chance to say all this. But just on the monitoring plan, Representative Bonior, what's your view of this plan to have a commission which would continue to monitor human right? REP. DAVID BONIOR: Elizabeth, we have enough commissions. We have the religious commission that just issued a report. With we have the State Department which annually issues reports on human rights. We don't need more commissions; we don't need more paperwork. And most of all we don't need to take this away from the elected representatives and members of Congress and give to it a commission, where nothing will get done. We were elected to do this and to raise these issues by the people that we represent. That should be our role. The thing that the Chinese want the most is to have this done permanently so that they don't have this review on an annual basis. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Now, Congressman Dreier, back to you, make your case for why you think this would be good for China. REP. DAVID DREIER: Well, if you look at the fact that people in China are obviously in a position where the genie has come out of the bottle on things like the Internet. Paul Gigot is one who right after the handover in 1997 of Hong Kong from British colonial rule to China, traveled into China and he asked a man, how did you hear did Deng Xiaoping's death. He said e-mail from the states, of course. We today have 7 million cellular phones in China, we have upwards of 9 million users of the Internet there and that obviously will continue to grow dramatically. So we've got the message of freedom, which is spreading throughout China. Think about it. China is going to in fact be entering the World Trade Organization. Is the world's paramount leader going to cede that to the rest of the world and not play the important leadership role that we have? Today we got the very good news that the European Union and China have both agreed. Tomorrow we will see Taiwan's new president - Chen Shui Bien -- inaugurated. And the morning after he was elected, and keep in mind he was the least desirable candidate on the part of Beijing, yet the morning after the election, he said that China's entry into the World Trade Organization is a very important thing. Martin Lee, the lead democracy activist, in Hong Kong, has come out and said that he believes that this is a very very important thing for us to do. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Let me give Congressman Bonior -- I want to get to other points too. Respond to that. But most important, what do you wish were in this that you think would help? REP. DAVID BONIOR: I wish in this agreement and all agreements we do with nations with respect to trade, that we elevate the issues of human rights, labor rights, and the environment. We are living in a different time. This trade agreement, and trade agreements that we have done over the past few years, is the past masquerading as the future. We live in a globalized world today. Things have changed. We interact with each more frequently and more easily. We have to have a seat at the table -- we being workers, people who care about human rights, people who care about the environment. And we have to be able to be a part of the discussions. You can't have a system of free markets where people aren't free. And that's exactly what's happening in China today. We have people working for Nike, for Keds, for Huffy Bike that are making between 3 cents and 22 cents an hour -- working 30 out of 31 days a month, working 12 hours a day -- not even making enough during one month to pay for one of the shoes that they make. It's a terrible indentured servitude type of situation where millions of workers are caught in China. If they try to organize, they're thrown in jail. That is not the kind of system we want in a globalized society. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: David Dreier on that - on the workers' issue? REP. DAVID DREIER: I will tell you, the problem we have here is that my friend David Bonior has opposed every trade deal that we've had -- REP. DAVID BONIOR: That's not true. I supported the American tree trade agreement with Canada. So don't tell people that I opposed it. REP. DAVID DREIER: I didn't remember - ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman Dreier, respond briefly to the workers issue.
	Trade, enterprise and freedom
	REP. DAVID DREIER: Let me just say -- trade promotes private enterprise, which creates wealth, which improves living standards and undermines political oppression. We need to realize that the standard of living has dramatically improved. It's not where we want it; it's not where the United States of America is. But, imports and exports help both countries, and I believe that we need to realize that. And we see the people of China looking for opportunity. And it is coming right now. And I believe that that is something that would be jeopardized if we were to in any way not bring them in to the World Trade Organization with the United States leadership role. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Both of you, briefly, what's at stake here? So many pundits have said this is the most important vote this year for this Congress. Is that true? Why? REP. DAVID BONIOR: I think what is at stake is our value system. Whether we care about these first principles of America, which are the right to associate, the right to pray freely, the right to bargain for a decent wage -- or whether the bottom line, the dollar, which is advocated by the multinational corporations, which are really behind in pushing this effort, is that more important than these first principles? I would say finally to you, Elizabeth, on this point, we have had these free trade agreements with China now since 1979 -- a whole host of them, our trade deficit with China has increased from $6 billion to 70 billion this year alone. And it only gets worse. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman Dreier, briefly what's at stake, and then I want a very brief prediction from both of you. REP. DAVID DREIER: Well, the fact of the matter is, we are seeing tremendous improvement take place. Our leadership role is what is at stake here. The United States of America has been the paramount leader, and we do not want to give that up to the rest of the world. I believe that we have an important responsibility to the people of China and to the people of the United States to make sure that we continue breaking down barriers. Because it's not a choice between American pocket books and American values. I agree with David that we need to get our American values in there. Establishing another wall of China is not going to in any way get our American values spread throughout that country. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think you have the votes, Congressman Dreier? REP. DAVID DREIER: I think the momentum is in favor of victory. It's very close, it's going to be a tough battle, but I believe we have a very good chance to win. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Congressman Bonior, briefly on that. REP. DAVID BONIOR: This is not establishing another wall. We will continue to trade and engage with China, but we want to do so under rules that protect workers in the environment and human rights, and we have momentum, we've got three or four people, four people today who came over, who were undecided on our side. And I will tell you -- ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry, we have to go. REP. DAVID DREIER: Thanks, Elizabeth. And tell Jim Lehrer Happy Birthday. That's why he's off this week. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I will. I will. Thank you both very much.