[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 15, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             MFN FOR CHINA

  Mr. DOLE. Madam President, Secretary of State Christopher has just 
returned from Asia. The first thing he needs to do is get a handle on 
what the United States is agreeing to in the United Nations--once again 
it appears that lowest-common-denominator U.N. politics are leading the 
United States down the wrong foreign policy road. The Secretary ought 
to tell U.N. Ambassador Albright that she has the leverage to negotiate 
a resolution on the Middle East that does not call Jerusalem part of 
the occupied territories. That has been U.S. policy, and that has been 
endorsed by the Senate in 1990. If she cannot do it, the United States 
should veto the resolution.
  The Asia trip did not go well. The Secretary met with his Russian 
counterpart in Valdivostok, after the Russians inserted themselves into 
the Middle East peace process. It does not look like the latest Russian 
foreign policy muscle flexing will do anything to put the peace process 
back on track.
  But if the Russia stop was a problem, the China stop was worse. 
Secretary Christopher was, in columnists Jim Hoagland's words, 
``Battered in Beijing.'' I am not sure why the Secretary went to China, 
or why he went at this time. Whatever the reason, the results are 
clear: U.S. foreign policy credibility has taken another body blow.
  This administration made detailed progress on human rights a 
condition for the granting of MFN to China. At the same time, this 
administration claims expanding American exports is a pillar of their 
foreign policy. The Chinese completely rebuffed Secretary Christopher 
on every human rights issue he raised--and they detained many 
dissidents on the eve of his visit. Clearly, this visit makes the 
administration's decision on MFN more difficult.
  No doubt about it, granting MFN to China is in the American interest. 
And the administration has created its own box by laying out detailed 
conditions which were never likely to be met through public 
blandishments. Now, however, we have the worst of all worlds. China 
will hardly be inclined to work with the United States on halting North 
Korea's nuclear program, or on slowing exports of military equipment 
and technology. The human rights situation got much worse because of 
the Secretary's visit. What sounded good in a political campaign 
becomes a little more complicated when American jobs are at stake.
  The administration is faced with a dilemma: Grant MFN and confirm 
that bullying the administration works, or deny MFN out of 
embarrassment and lose billions of dollars of U.S. exports and tens of 
thousands of U.S. jobs.
  There is another way: Remove China's MFN status from the annual 
political theater, and use other nontrade means, to express our 
displeasure over the pace and scope of democratization. America cannot 
afford a trade policy that opens Vietnam and shuts down China.
  I ask unanimous consent that Jim Hoagland's article from today's 
Washington Post be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 15, 1994]

                          Battered in Beijing

                           (By Jim Hoagland)

       Say this for Warren Christopher's bungled diplomatic foray 
     into China: It makes his handling of Bosnia look brilliant by 
     comparison.
       The end of winter brings out the worst in the Clinton 
     administration's penchant for launching the low-key 
     Christopher at a high-profile diplomatic problem as a 
     substitute for adopting a clear, effective policy.
       Almost a year ago Christopher went off to whip the 
     Europeans into shape on Bosnia, only to come home in visible 
     retreat. But at least the Europeans were equally responsible 
     for that policy mess.
       On China, the secretary of state, the president and their 
     aides have produced a policy disaster all on their own.
       By the time Christopher left Beijing yesterday, he had made 
     a bad situation worse with a visit that should never have 
     been made. The odds now are that the Clinton administration 
     will come out with the worst of all worlds on China--trying 
     to compensate for political errors through economic pressure.
       Over the past six months Washington has given the crumbling 
     Communist dictatorship new political legitimacy by seeking a 
     ``dialogue'' on human rights. Now that Christopher has been 
     kicked in the teeth, President Clinton may be forced to 
     maintain his credibility by canceling the most favored nation 
     trading status that is helping make China more of a 
     capitalist nation.
       He would have been better off the other way around: 
     maintaining normal trading status with China while 
     withholding the political approval Clinton conveyed by 
     welcoming China's president for a bilateral meeting last 
     November in Seattle and by the other high-level contacts the 
     administration has pursued.
       Astonishingly, in the wake of Beijing's deliberate 
     humiliation of Christopher, Undersecretary of Defense Frank 
     G. Wisner met with Chinese officials in Beijing yesterday to 
     discuss a future meeting between the two nations' defense 
     ministers and other subjects.
       Could my outrage be misplaced? Is the Wisner mission a tip-
     off that the past week of arrests and harassment of 
     dissidents and soft words by Christopher was a staged 
     presentation of Chinese toughness, masking a secret deal to 
     be unveiled in time to justify Clinton's granting MFN in late 
     May?
       Let us hope so.
       Otherwise one must conclude that the Chinese believe that 
     no matter what they do they already have in the bag renewal 
     of the trading rights that will net them a projected $24 
     billion trade surplus with America this year.
       Beijing could easily have drawn the conclusion that Clinton 
     would not dare buck ``the business lobby'' from a speech 
     given to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce on March 3 by 
     Undersecretary of Commerce Jeffrey Garten, who emphasized the 
     importance of China and Indonesia to Clinton's ``national 
     export strategy'' and to American investors.
       Asked by reporters how his speech fit with the president's 
     emphasis on human rights and Christopher's upcoming visit to 
     China. Garten replied that he did not deal with human rights. 
     (To which Jonathan Mirsky of the Times of London responded: 
     ``Come on. Even Oscar Schindler did a little human rights.'')
       Christopher's performance may well have confirmed for the 
     Chinese that bullying this administration works. Speaking 
     before unhappy U.S. businessmen in Beijing, the secretary 
     softened the administration's stand on what the Chinese must 
     do to get MFN renewed. Before the Chinese beat up on him, 
     Washington sought substantial progress in human rights. Now 
     Christopher seeks only ``limited progress.''
       That downgrading of the U.S. goal--under the twin pressure 
     of the Leninists who run the Chinese government and U.S. 
     businessmen reaping handsome profits in a low-wage economy--
     does the dissidents of China a disservice. And it obscures 
     what ``human rights'' means in the context of China today.
       A petition signed by Xu Liangying, a 74-year-old historian 
     who translated Albert Einstein's collected works into 
     Chinese, and six other prominent intellectuals stated the 
     dissidents' one basic demand: to be able to say in public 
     they want a democratic China in which the Communist Party has 
     to compete for power at the ballot box rather than monopolize 
     it through the barrel of a gun.
       Prime Minister Li Peng's army murdered hundreds of students 
     rather than let them say those dangerous words in June 1989. 
     A score of people who would have said those words to a senior 
     U.S. official were arrested just before or during 
     Christopher's visit, with little visible outrage by the 
     secretary.
       China is a reality that has to be acknowledged. Trade in 
     nonmilitary goods, on a normal basis, in a constructive way 
     to do that. But Clinton has saddled himself with the choice 
     of revoking MFN or cynically claiming that his policies have 
     produced significant change in China when that is not the 
     case.
       Better to do what no government, including Bill Clinton's, 
     has ever done. That is to admit it has botched its China 
     policy and needs to start fresh. Grant MFN, suspend high-
     level political contacts and have Clinton again meet with 
     pro-democracy Chinese students and publicly support Tibet.
       That would at least gain Clinton something that 
     Christopher's visit did not produce: Respect from the tough-
     minded rulers of China.
  Mr. DOLE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum has been suggested. 
The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MITCHELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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