DATE=5/16/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON-CHINA (L)
NUMBER=2-262441
BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST
DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO:  President Clinton is increasingly optimistic 
that his drive to win permanent normal U-S trade 
status for China will succeed in Congress. But as V-O-
A's David Gollust reports from the White House, Mr. 
Clinton is taking no chances and has begun one-on-one 
meetings with undecided House members.

TEXT:  The China trade measure is least popular in 
Congress among House members of the president's own 
Democratic party. 

But his campaign for passage got a big boost Tuesday 
with an endorsement from the ranking Democrat on the 
House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel.  And 
Mr. Clinton is now openly predicting victory in a vote 
he depicts as the most important foreign policy 
decision by Congress this year.

At an impromptu news conference here, the president 
called Mr. Rangel's decision "enormously important" 
and said it should help persuade other Democrats to 
support the administration in a committee vote on the 
trade measure expected Wednesday, and in a final House 
vote sometime next week. 

China agreed to deep cuts in trade barriers to 
American goods and services last year as part of the 
agreement putting Beijing on the same tariff basis as 
other major U-S trading partners and clearing the way 
to its membership in the World Trade Organization.

In his talk with reporters, Mr. Clinton again stressed 
support for the trade bill among Chinese dissidents, 
who he said expect freer trade and W-T-O membership to 
have a liberalizing effect on Chinese society:

            /// CLINTON ACTUALITY ///

      Chinese dissidents, in China, people who have 
      been subject to abuses we would never tolerate 
      in our country - whose phones have been tapped, 
      who can't sponsor public events - still implore 
      us to support this because they know it is the 
      beginning of the rule of law and change in 
      China. And (it's) ironic that the people in 
      China who do not want us to vote for this are 
      those that hope they will have a standoff with 
      us and continue in control at home - the more 
      reactionary elements in the military and the 
      state-owned industries. 

            /// END ACT ///

Mr. Clinton said the national security and economic 
arguments in favor of the trade bill are so 
overwhelming that Congress will in the end - as he put 
it - "do the right thing" and approve it. 

The president, who has held group meetings with 
lawmakers on the trade issue, met privately one-on-one 
Tuesday with several of the more than 20 House 
Democrats who are still undecided and could hold the 
key to next week's vote.

The trade bill is opposed by U-S labor unions and 
human rights activists, who argue that giving up an 
annual congressional review of China's trade status 
will cost the United States leverage on human rights.

To ally those concerns, the administration is 
supporting a move to create a congressional monitoring 
commission to investigate Chinese human rights abuses. 
(Signed)

NEB/DAG/TVM/gm



16-May-2000 17:40 PM EDT (16-May-2000 2140 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America
.