RIGHTS VS. ECONOMIC MIGHT

June 24, 1997
		The House has backed President Clinton and voted to maintain China's Most Favored Nation trading status, ignoring calls to impose sanctions for human rights violations. Following this background report with Kwame Holman, Margaret Warner leads a debate that analyzes economics and ethics of the vote.

June 24, 1997: A backgrounder on the debate over China's Most Favored Nation trading status. May 19, 1997: President Clinton announces plans to grant Most Favored Nation status to China. June 2, 1998: Critics charge the President Clinton is ignoring human rights abuses in China. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Asia.   U.S. State Department U.S. Embassy in China Chinese consulate in New York	CLERK: House joint Resolution 79, joint resolution disapproving the extension of non-discriminatory treatment, Most Favored Nation treatment, to the products of the People's Republic of China. KWAME HOLMAN: Sustaining Most Favored Nation--or normal trade status--for China has precipitated a heated annual debate in Congress since China's Tiananmen Square crackdown on dissidents in 1989. So on the House floor today many of the arguments were familiar and as usual on this issue crossed party lines. Democrats like Barbara Kennelly supported President Clinton's call to maintain normal trade status. REP. BARBARA KENNELLY, (D) Connecticut: Today's debate will have a complexity that goes far beyond what's in front of us--trade and immigration. On both sides, economic, political, strategic, and humanitarian differences abound. And yet, we have allowed this one issue, Most Favored Nation status, to be a referendum on U.S.-China relationship. It has come to be the lens through which most Americans look at and view the entire United States-China policy. And, Mr. Speaker, this, indeed, unfortunate, because not only is China the largest emerging market in the world, but it is also a potent political and military force. China's new leadership will shape--whether we like it or not--for better or for worse--what happens in the Pacific Rim. We will undermine our ability to shape not only our future but China's future if we withdraw from this situation. KWAME HOLMAN: But some labor-oriented Democrats oppose MFN for China. REP. JAMES TRAFICANT, (D) Ohio: China enjoys a $50 billion trade surplus. They have a 17 cent an hour labor wage. They deny most American products, and the impose up to 30 percent tariffs on nearly all of our products. In addition, China shoots their own citizens, treats their women like cattle, laughs in the face of the United States. And, finally, China is a Communist dictatorship and American law--current law--says no Communist nation shall get MFN. KWAME HOLMAN: And there are similar splits on the Republican side. REP. JIM BUNNING, (R) Kentucky: No one believes that simply denying Most Favored Nation status is going to solve everything. Let's be honest about it. Denying MFN might not solve anything. But I do know that if we believe in human rights, if we believe in human decency, we must respond somehow. We cannot allow such abysmal treatment and such callous disregard for human rights to go unnoticed or unanswered. Denying MFN might not be a great answer, but it's the only one we have at hand today. REP. BOB LIVINGSTON, (R) Louisiana: Everything that everybody has said on the floor today is right about the atrocities committed by the Chinese government, but they're moving in the right direction. And all this Most Favored Nation status stuff is whether or not to preserve normal trading relations with China. If we cut 'em off, if we isolate 'em, are we going to enhance the plight of the China people, or all the people that they control? Not according to Martin Lee, who is the leader of democracy in Hong Kong; not according to Chris Patton, who's the former governor of Hong Kong, who's on his way out. These leaders and proponents for democracy say that cutting off MFN from China is going to increase the probability that people will be oppressed by the Chinese government. KWAME HOLMAN: But this year there's also a new issue in the trade with China debate, persecution of religious activists in China, especially Christians. For the first time in the China MFN debate conservative groups, including the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council, have mobilized opposition to normal trade status for China and vowed to hold accountable in the next election those members of China who vote for it. Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia is the leader of the religious freedom movement. REP. FRANK WOLF, (R) Virginia: The administration's policy has fundamentally failed. It is not true to American values. I will tell you it is amoral, and I personally believe that it is immoral. They have more slave labor camps in China than they had in the Soviet Union when Gulag Archipelago was written by Solzhenitsyn. KWAME HOLMAN: But some members, frustrated by the repetitive nature of the annual debate, have called for new measures to encourage change in China. REP. JOHN PORTER, (R) Illinois: Each year we debate MFN. We vent our anger and frustration with China, and we sent messages, and I have consistently, Mr. Speaker, voted to cut off MFN. But nothing ever happens. And nothing will happen this year. KWAME HOLMAN: Porter and other Republicans plan to push a package of legislation to put pressure on China via other means. But in the end, today, pro MFN forces succeeded as expected, defeating the resolution that would have blocked President Clinton from granting normal trade status to China 259 to 173. But that success came with dozens fewer votes than last year.