[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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