[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             MFN FOR CHINA

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, on July 3, China could lose its most-
favored-nation tariff status. By an odd coincidence, that is the 150th 
anniversary of our first trade agreement with China--the Treaty of 
Wanghia. In that treaty, our main achievement was that China gave us--
gave America--MFN status. Then, as now, MFN was neither a concession 
nor a privilege. It is a basic, reciprocal way to conduct trade.
  And MFN conditions are the economic equivalent of a nuclear bomb. If 
we revoke MFN, we flout the advice of every Asian friend and trade 
partner. We cut off trade with the world's fastest growing market. We 
endanger scientific contact with a huge contributor to global warming. 
We risk a cold war with the biggest country in the world. It would be 
folly.


                  importance of promoting human rights

  Our goals in human rights are the right goals. I have met a man who 
was tortured with needles in a Chinese jail, and spoken with families 
of political prisoners. It makes me angry, and it makes us all angry. 
But anger is not enough. The question is not whether to promote human 
rights in China. The question is how to promote human rights in China.
  Pressure helps. I, like others, have pushed the Chinese regime on 
human rights. It is a great source of pride for me to have played some 
small role in the releases of Gendun Rinchen and Wang Juntao.
  But pressure also has limits. Whatever our threat, the regime will 
make no concession it thinks will weaken its hold on power. MFN 
conditions simply cannot win basic reform.


                      costs of revoking mfn status

  And if the threat is real, MFN conditions mean disaster. Take trade. 
Last year we sold China 9 billion dollars' worth of goods, and 180,000 
American jobs depend on those exports. More every day. If we revoke 
MFN, China retaliates and we lose it all.
  On the environment, we lose a chance to slow global warming; protect 
our fisheries; and help China prevent millions of birth defects and 
other tragedies. On security, we lose China's cooperation on North 
Korea. Our problems on missile sales worsen. China would oppose us at 
the U.N. Security Council. And a new generation of Chinese leaders 
turns against us as the succession to Deng Xiaoping begins.
  And human rights. Revoking MFN puts up to 13 million Chinese out of 
work. The Government, fearing riots, would clamp down harder, and 
dissidents would take the blame for wrecking the lives of millions of 
workers. No wonder the student leader Wang Dan has already called on us 
to renew MFN.


                         u.s. policy paralyzed

  MFN is a great threat. And it scares us as much as China. It makes us 
lose our nerve when we need to be firm.
  We back off on copyright piracy and endangered species because we are 
afraid of MFN.
  In March, the Secretary of State could not afford to cancel his visit 
when China arrested dissidents. In April, we avoided a formal 
Presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama. And in May, when the 
President of Taiwan passed through Hawaii, we would not even let him 
get a night's sleep in a hotel. We are paralyzed.


                       no half measures possible

  Supporters of MFN conditions have begun to say we can do it halfway. 
Revoke MFN for state-owned enterprises, or invent a special tariff 
category for China between Smoot-Hawley and MFN.
  These half-measures sound superficially attractive. But in reality, 
they are impossible.
  Our laws provide no authority, barring a national economic emergency, 
for any of them. There is plainly no such emergency. We need 
legislation even to begin.
  If a bill passed, it would be unworkable. Take revoking MFN for 
state-owned enterprises. In China, ministries run firms for profit. 
They start joint venture enterprises. Their bosses open companies. Even 
in theory there is no line between public and private. If there was, 
our U.S. Customs could never find it in practice.
  And if we impose any massive sanction, China will not kowtow and 
thank us because we did not quite revoke MFN. It will hit back. A trade 
war will begin, with the same result as revoking MFN completely.


                        this year's mfn decision

  So the time has come to renew MFN permanently. The question, of 
course, is whether we can renew it at all.
  I believe we can. Emigration and prison labor, the two mandatory 
conditions in the President's Executive order, are met. And on the five 
conditions on which we asked for overall, significant progress, we have 
enough to justify renewal.
  China advanced on at least 10 of the 30 articles in the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights; gave a real if flawed accounting of 
political prisoners; released some prisoners; and entered apparently 
good faith talks on Red Cross access and VOA jamming. No problems are 
solved. But we have enough to renew MFN and move on to a long-term 
policy, using four main tools. What are they?


                        new policy after june 3

  First, diplomacy. We need more diplomatic personnel on the issue in 
China. We should meet more frequently with democrats from China and 
Tibet, and with the elected leaders of Taiwan. And we should give human 
rights a permanent, top-level focus with new bilateral and regional 
Human Rights Commissions.
  Second, economic leverage. One area is prison labor, where we should 
use trade sanctions if China breaks its commitments. Another is the 
World Bank, where we should oppose loans to abusive provinces and 
support loans to reformers. A third is tourism, where our travel 
advisories can help steer American tourists and their money toward 
reformist provinces.
  Third, nonconfrontational methods. Angry speeches get headlines. But 
a quieter approach gets results. Legal exchange, the Peace Corps, 
environmental and scientific missions all help.
  And fourth, voluntary action from American business. It can be human 
rights advocacy; adopting codes of conduct; preventing pollution and 
promoting workplace safety.
  Companies like Reebok, Dow, and Sears, Roebuck already take these 
measures. GE and Chrysler have an innovative proposal to reinstate OPIC 
and TDA in China, with a human and labor rights review on their 
projects.


                               conclusion

  Finally, we should begin by recognizing that trade itself promotes 
human rights.
  Frederick Douglass writes: ``to make a contented slave, it is 
necessary to make a thoughtless slave.'' To control people, stop them 
from thinking. Keep them illiterate, ignorant, and isolated.
  That is what Mao did. He shut the doors. He burned the books; shut 
down commerce; and thus controlled the people. But because of trade and 
economic reform--in part, because China has MFN--his system is 
beginning to crack.
  You see it all over China, particularly in the southern provinces and 
in the western provinces. But you also see it now in the mainland with 
commerce and the rise of communications technologies and all the TV 
antennas that are sprouting up in southwest China, helping democracy 
thrive.
  With MFN in place, the cracks will widen. And in time, China will 
become the great, respected, democratic nation we all hope to see.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the Senator 
from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley].
  Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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