DATE=2/29/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=BARSHEFSKY - CHINA - W-T-O (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-259686
BYLINE=BARBARA SCHOETZAU
DATELINE=NEW YORK
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:


INTRO:  U-S Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky 
says American workers will suffer if the U-S Congress 
does not ratify the agreement supporting China's entry 
into the World Trade Organization.  V-O-A's Barbara 
Schoetzau has this report on Ms. Barshefsky's remarks 
in New York Tuesday.

TEXT:  After years of negotiations, China and the 
United States reached an agreement last year on terms 
for China's membership in the World Trade 
Organization.  But American labor and human rights 
groups are calling for defeat of the agreement by the 
U-S Congress, which has yet to ratify it.

Ms. Barshefsky calls the agreement one-sided, with 
China making all the changes in its trade regime.  She 
says the United States has only one obligation 
according to the new agreement - to make the trade 
relationship between the two countries permanent 
instead of renewing it every year.

            /// BARSHEFSKY ACT ///

      If Congress were to refuse to grant permanent 
      normal trade relations with China, we risk 
      losing the benefits we negotiated.  We will have 
      succeeded in opening China to the world but our 
      businesses, our farmers, our workers may well be 
      left behind.  That is a completely unacceptable 
      -- not to mention irrational -- outcome.  The 
      cost of U-S retreat at this most critical moment 
      could go well beyond -- I believe will go well 
      beyond -- our export and trade interests.

            /// END ACT ///

Ms. Barshefsky says under the agreement, China will 
for the first time since the 1940s allow foreign 
businesses to participate directly in information 
industries, including the internet, and will permit 
foreign and Chinese businesses to import and export 
freely.  These kinds of commitments, the U-S Trade 
Representative says, are a remarkable victory for 
economic reformers within China.

            /// BARSHEFSKY ACT ///

      They will reform policies dating to the earliest 
      years of the communist era.  They will give the 
      Chinese people more access to information, 
      weakening the ability of hard-liners in China to 
      isolate the Chinese public from outside 
      influences and ideas.  Altogether, they reflect 
      a judgment, still not universally shared by all 
      of China's leadership, that prosperity, 
      security, and international respect come not 
      from static notions of nationalism, state power 
      and state control, but rather economic opening, 
      engagement with the world and, ultimately, the 
      development of the rule of law.

            /// END ACT ///

Ms. Barshefsky spoke to the Asia Society, a private 
group that presented the U-S Trade Representative with 
its "Leadership Award," for building bridges between 
Asia and the United States. (Signed)

NEB/NYC/BJS/LSF/ENE/JP




29-Feb-2000 16:49 PM EDT (29-Feb-2000 2149 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.