DATE=5/22/2000 TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP TITLE=CHINA TRADE VOTE NUMBER=6-11831 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 INTERNET=YES CONTENT= INTRO: The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this week on normalizing trade with China. That remains a popular editorial topic, as the lobbying effort on both sides heats up. We get a sampling now from _________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: For years the United States has tried to influence the internal behavior of a few other countries by subjecting them to an annual trade review. It is called the Most Favored Nation trading law, but that may be a misleading title. The law does not give preferential trade status to countries, it bestows on them normal trading relations the U-S has with most nations of the world, but only after congressional debate. Some of the considerations the Congress takes into account are civil and human rights. And China scores low on both. Beijing is also unpopular with many lawmakers for its continued belligerence to Taiwan. China and the other nations affected by this policy hate it, complaining it amounts to meddling in their internal affairs. There are also critics of the policy in this country, who feel trade relations need to be kept separate from human rights, and other areas of conflict. Now, Congress is debating a Clinton administration proposal to make normal trading with China, permanent, ending the annual review. It is favored in the Senate, but the House of Representatives vote, scheduled for later this week, is thought to be very close. Lobbying is intense. Most organized labor in this country opposes the move, fearing the loss of jobs, while some prominent Chinese dissidents also oppose it, fearing the Chinese will be more repressive if they win. Other dissidents, and former U-S presidents Ford, Carter and Bush, say granting normal status will increase trade and could eventually lead to a better Chinese human rights climate. The vote is also tied in to China's pending membership in the World Trade Organization, supported by the Clinton Administration. Almost all papers coming in to the V-O-A newsroom favor the change and they include The Kansas City [Missouri] Star, which says "Approve permanent trade relations with China." VOICE: If permanent normal trade relations doesn't pass, American exporters can't take advantage of a market-opening agreement negotiated with China last year. Among other things, that agreement calls for big drops in auto tariffs by China. That would allow carmakers to see American-made cars in China. ... If permanent trading status fails, China's door will open to the world - - but not to U-S exporters. Yet the unions have somehow convinced themselves that new markets are very bad. So they've ginned up [concocted] another go-to-the mat effort, hoping to wreck a trade measure that's clearly in the U-S economic and national security interest. TEXT: The San Jose [California] Mercury News supports the change, and says a congressional plan to establish a commission to review both Chinese human rights progress and honesty in trading should quell the fears of many Democrats and others who oppose the bill. VOICE: [The Plan will]...establish an office in the Commerce Department, with a dozen specialists, to monitor China's compliance with the trade agreement it negotiated with America. ... The latest proposals for monitoring Chinese exports and human rights ... add one more element to the overriding and compelling argument for permanent normal trade and China's admission to the W-T-O. TEXT: Still in California, The San Francisco Examiner also feels that establishing a human rights monitoring commission on China, linked to congressional approval of normalizing trade relations, goes a long way to appease the move's critics. VOICE: Controversy over the administration's drive for permanent normal trade relations with China is yielding to imaginative solutions to problems raised by legislative opponents and those wavering on the issue. ... Approval of the China trade bill also is brought closer by agreement between House and Senate conferees on terms of a bill providing trade benefits for African and Caribbean nations. ... The aim of [the proposed] commission [to monitor Chinese human rights] is to exert continuous pressure on Beijing to comply with its trade commitments as well as improve its human rights record ... The China bill faces a close vote in the house, but is believed to have a safe margin in the Senate. TEXT: In the Rhode Island capital, however, The Providence Journal is worried. In an editorial detailing China's repression of the Falun Gong religious sect, the Journal is unsure of how the trade debate will affect Beijing's attitude toward any type of dissent. VOICE: Governments around the world including our own, have appealed to China to cease persecuting the Falun Gong but the repression continues. How Beijing thinks this will persuade wavering senators to normalize trade relations with China, or stimulate the W-T-O to invite China to join, is beyond our comprehension. TEXT: Speaking to the strong opposition of organized labor to normalizing relations, The [Cleveland, Ohio] Plain Dealer says in short: "Labor is wrong about China." VOICE: Labor's big fear is that multinational companies ... will [take] American jobs forthwith to that workers paradise. ... [and] that granting Beijing such permanent status would be to surrender forever the leverage to press it for human rights, better environmental policy and improved working conditions. The concerns are reasonable and the stated objectives honorable, but the denial would be exactly the wrong course to take. The United States has tried for years to lever China into improving the lot of its working people, to very little avail. ... Congress should approve ... the China ... trade [measure] for the good of all concerned. TEXT: Turning to the home of one of this country's largest trade unions, the United Auto Workers, The Detroit News, weighs all of labor's concerns, and those of human rights critics as well. The News says however that to argue that giving China normal trading status gives up the only leverage this country has to bring about internal change, is "spurious for several reasons." VOICE: First, China already enjoys more access to U-S markets than vice-versa. Yet China is offering the United States sweeping market openings in exchange for normal trade relations to facilitate its entry into the World Trade Organization ... It has not only promised to lower industrial tariffs but open sectors such as banking and insurance, which until now have been out of bounds for foreign investors. .... it is possible that China could be accepted into the W-T-O without permanent normal trade relations status. ... Nor would denying normal trade relations help the cause of human rights in China. ... Handing China normal trading status and its subsequent accession into the W- T-O would help further entrench the market reforms that the country has already adopted. It is no coincidence that the president ... of Taiwan has also called upon the United States to normalize trade ties with the mainland. Congressional Democrats ought to heed his call .. /// OPT /// TEXT: That was the view of the Detroit News. Lastly, The Philadelphia Inquirer says that if critics of China's human rights policy prevail, and the normalizing trade vote fails, the result may well be a "backfire," that will have exactly the opposite from the desired effect. VOICE: With a close vote looming, the Clinton administration and congressional supporters have shaped up a plan for a high-powered commission to monitor China's future performance on human rights, labor issues and fair trade. That's a positive way to pursue economic sense with China without disregarding valid concerns about its sorry record on human rights. /// END OPT TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of opinion on this week's Congressional vote on permanent normal trade relations with China. NEB/ANG/gm 22-May-2000 16:14 PM LOC (22-May-2000 2014 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .