DATE=2/15/2000 TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT TITLE=U.S.-CHINA TRADE NUMBER=5-45464 BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: President Clinton has mounted an intensive drive to persuade Congress to permanently grant China normal trading status with the United States - a move that would help clear the way to Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization, the WTO. White House aides describe it as the toughest political fight Mr. Clinton will have in his final year in office. V-O-A's David Gollust reports from the White House TEXT: The debate has created unusual alliances - with business groups and top Republicans supporting the President, and labor unions and other traditional Democratic party constituents opposing the trade measure. And with election-year politics complicating the mix, White House aides believe Mr. Clinton only has a window of a few months to get the controversial measure through the Congress. The Clinton Administration promised to permanently put China on the same tariff basis as virtually all other U-S trading partners as part of a market-opening bilateral trade agreement concluded late last year. The White House says China - which enjoys a huge surplus in its trade with the United States - made virtually all the concessions to get the agreement. But some opponents say they doubt China's willingness to actually live up to its terms in opening closed markets to U-S goods and services. Others contend that by giving up what has been an annual congressional debate on China's trade status, the United States is relinquishing vital leverage over - among other things - China's human rights performance. As he officially began his lobbying campaign for the trade agreement last month, President Clinton said the trade deal will not prevent the United States from pressing its views on human rights and other issues on which its disagrees with Beijing. At the same time, he said opening China to more world trade will encourage both economic reform and respect for the rule of law in that country: /// CLINTON ACTUALITY /// We want to see a China that is moving toward democracy at home and stability around the world. This agreement gives China's people access to goods and services, to ideas and innovations that will help to promote those goals. It also gives China access to the World Trade Organization membership, and that will help promote those goals. Bringing China into the WTO is a win-win decision. It will protect our prosperity. And will promote the right kind of change in China. /// END ACT /// President Clinton has been meeting groups of congressmen on almost a daily basis - focusing on Democrats who are badly split over the issue. There is broader support among Republicans, including presidential candidate George W. Bush who told the N- B-C television last Sunday that he too believes that opening China to freer trade will have a beneficial political impact: /// BUSH ACTUALITY /// The World Trade Organization has been a very interesting debate. Many religious leaders around the world believe that China ought to be admitted into the World Trade Organization because they recognize what I recognize - that there's a better chance for freedom to take hold in China. Members of the democracy movement in China have expressed their desire for trade to continue, because they realize what you and I know: that if the Internet takes hold, freedom will take wing. /// END ACTUALITY /// But U-S organized labor fiercely opposes the agreement. Labor unions fear a loss of jobs to China if U-S companies move factories there. They promise a fight on the scale of labor opposition in the mid- 1990's to the North America Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA. Thea Lee - Assistant Director for Public Policy for the AFL-CIO labor federation - told V-O-A the WTO is a weak organization that can and would do nothing to prod China to improve its poor record on workers' and human rights: /// LEE ACTUALITY /// There are no rules, there are no minimum standards protecting workers rights or human rights. And so there's no pressure that comes on China from its membership in the World Trade Organization to improve its egregiously bad record on human rights and workers rights. And we think that if the United States Congress turns down permanent, normal trade relations, we will have the ability to use annual reviews and unilateral sanctions more effectively to pressure China to make sure that its workers have freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, and that there are not abuses of forced labor, child labor or discrimination in employment. /// END ACT /// Stephen Yates, senior China policy analyst at Washington's conservative Heritage Foundation, says there is nothing inevitable about human right progress in China flowing from increased trade. But he says China needs access to advanced technologies, and its Communist leaders are taking what he terms "a precarious gamble" in seeking to join WTO. Mr. Yates, who - on balance - supports permanent normal trade status for China, says the annual debate in Congress was probably over-rated as a way of influencing Chinese policy: /// YATES ACTUALITY /// If a president moves forward with permanent extension by clearly outlining plans he had to address these kinds of concerns through another means, then we haven't lost leverage - he simply moves leverage from one area to another. And there's also somewhat of a debate on how much leverage there really was in this process. Because no matter how you went about it, it's true there was an annual debate or argument or discussion about U-S relations with China and things happening in China. But just the same, if right after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 we weren't going to discontinue normal trade with China, when were we? /// END ACT /// U-S Senate approval of the China trade package is considered likely. But analysts in both parties say it is a close call in the House of Representatives, despite a 260-to-170 vote for extending trade benefits the last time the issue came up for annual review last July. They say Democratic votes for the deal will evaporate as the November election draws nearer, and the administration will stand little chance of getting approval if it is not acted on by June. (Signed) NEB/DAG/JO 15-Feb-2000 16:52 PM EDT (15-Feb-2000 2152 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .