DATE=3/9/2000
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=THE CHINA TRADE DEBATE
NUMBER=6-11720
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
CONTENT=

INTRO:  President Clinton has begun a campaign to win 
congressional passage of a measure that would grant 
China normal trading status with the United States, 
and thus put an end to the yearly congressional 
argument over U-S trade relations with Beijing.

America's trade relations with China are always a 
controversial topic on Capitol Hill and more so this 
year due to recent warnings from Beijing about 
retaking Taiwan by force, and Beijing's latest crack 
down on religious and political dissent.  Many U-S 
editorial columns are joining in the debate, and we 
get a sampling now from ___________ in today's U-S 
Opinion roundup.

TEXT:  Trade between the United States and China 17-
billion dollars in recent years.  President Clinton 
has said many times, to critics of China's flawed 
record on human rights, that the best way to draw 
China deeper into the society of nations is to 
increase trade and other contacts, rather than isolate 
Beijing.  

Critics of the president's China policy, among them 
many Democrats on Capitol Hill, continue to be angry 
about the repression of both political and religious 
dissidents, as well as recent bellicose statements 
about possibly re-taking Taiwan if unification talks 
continue to stall.  So it is generally agreed that 
President Clinton now has a difficult task, convincing 
Congress to grant China permanent, most favored nation 
trading status.

The majority of newspapers agree with the president, 
although many others are upset at the threats against 
Taiwan.  We begin in Florida, where the St. Petersburg 
Times, which sides with Mr. Clinton.

VOICE:  Washington has been routinely extending 
China's normal trade status year after year, receiving 
nothing tangible in return.  Now our government has a 
historic opportunity to extract concessions from 
Beijing that will remove longstanding barriers to U-S 
companies seeking to do business in China.  The 
concessions also could go a long way toward opening 
China's society to the world and breaking the insular 
grip of Beijing's Communist leadership.  In return, 
Washington would have to make permanent the trade 
status is has annually awarded China anyway. ... [The] 
... new agreement, ... which makes sense both 
strategically and economically, should not be held 
hostage to short-sighed politics.  It deserves to be 
ratified.

TEXT:  Southern California's San Diego Union-Tribune 
goes over some of the problems the president is facing 
in his battle with a reluctant Congress.

VOICE:  [President] Clinton will have to muster 
whatever political capital he has to win passage of 
the trade accord.  That will prove rather tricky, 
given that organized labor, a key Democratic 
constituency, is determined to prevent permanent 
normal trade relations (N-T-R) with China, as well as 
Beijing's entry into the World Trade Organization.  
Labor's resolve on China trade was dramatized when 
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and two other labor 
leaders resigned "in protest" from President Clinton's 
Advisory Commission on Trade Policy and Negotiations. 
...As it is now, China imposes Draconian trade 
barriers to U-S goods and services, including import 
quotas, tariffs, licensing requirements and local 
content mandates.  A U-S-China trade agreement will 
reduce, if not altogether eliminate, these trade 
barriers.  That means U-S companies will be able to 
market far more goods and services to China's one 
billion consumers -- goods produced and services 
provided by American workers. ... That's why 
liberalized trade with China would be a win-win for 
American business **and** [italics for emphasis] 
American workers.

TEXT:  The New York Times, taking note of the recent 
threats toward Taiwan from Beijing if reunification 
talks continue to drag on without progress, is one of 
several papers that say the Chinese are prone to 
terrible diplomatic timing.

VOICE:  It would be beneficial to America, China and 
Taiwan to see Beijing admitted to the World Trade 
Organization under the reasonable terms negotiated 
last year.  But China is now pressing its luck in 
Washington.  Its bullying attitude toward Taiwan will 
increase congressional opposition to W-T-O membership.  
The longer-term risk is that continued Chinese threats 
could lead to dangerous military tensions in the 
Taiwan Strait.  That would be the least promising way 
to deal with Taiwan's future.    

TEXT: The Atlanta Constitution says Congress should 
move quickly, on the China trade issue, and the big 
Georgia daily praises President Clinton's efforts.

VOICE:  He's buttonholed (has spoken with) at least 50 
senators and representatives on the issue.  He's set 
up a "war room" to coordinate the trade-deal campaign.  
His Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, made a major 
speech in Boston advocating most-favored-nation status 
for China.  And Wednesday, [Mr.] Clinton himself made 
trade with China the focus of a speech at Johns 
Hopkins University, and he sent the enabling 
legislation to Capitol Hill.   All this in the face of 
vigorous opposition from Big Labor and 
environmentalists, two key Democratic constituencies.

TEXT:  Turning to the directly related issue of 
Beijing's recent threats to re-take Taiwan by force if 
the reunification talks continue to stall, Paul 
Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas 
Democrat-Gazette, has some thoughts on that, published 
this week in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  He says: 
"The United States cannot afford to turn its back on 
... Taiwan": 

VOICE:  At the dawn of a new century, we still have 
not learned one of the clearest lessons of the old: A 
democratic ally denied the means to defend itself may 
soon become an irresistible target, and this country 
will be called on to defend it.  An ounce of 
deterrence now might prevent a world of aggression 
later.

TEXT:  Lastly, from the city with America's largest 
ethnic Chinese population, the San Francisco Chronicle 
writes.

VOICE:  Political foes don't need convincing arguments 
to assail China with -- Beijing does the work so well 
itself.  Consider China's outburst aimed at Taiwan as 
the island heads toward a March 18th presidential 
election.  The Taiwan vote was mostly a homegrown 
affair ... The perennial issue of independence or 
unification with China was ever-present but 
subordinate.  Then Beijing stepped in to warn about 
"the use of force" against the island ... The stunt 
has boomeranged badly for Beijing and embarrassed the 
pro-China policies of the Clinton administration.  The 
salvo couldn't have come at a worse time if Beijing is 
attempting to steer the Taiwan vote or win adherents 
on Capitol Hill.  ... China has supplied the reasons 
for the Senate to approve stronger military ties to 
Taiwan, a move unneeded in calmer times.  In addition, 
Congress soon will take up permanent trade ties with 
China, leading ultimately to admission to the World 
Trade Organization.  This major trophy will be harder 
to earn the more China rants about its dusty quarrel 
with Taiwan.

TEXT:  On that note, we conclude this sampling of 
comment from the U-S press on the debate over granting 
permanent normal trading status to China.

NEB/ANG/KL




09-Mar-2000 13:51 PM EDT (09-Mar-2000 1851 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.