[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      MFN FOR CHINA CONSISTENT WITH AMERICA'S INTERESTS AND IDEALS

  (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, should the President decide to renew most-
favored-nation status for China it is my belief that this Congress will 
join in that decision. We will do so because in the final hour this 
Congress would recognize that this action would be consistent both with 
America's interests and in its ideals.
  Here our interests are obvious. The need to create and preserve jobs 
by expanding trade, trade that will strangle with the denial of MFN, is 
vitally important to the people of our country. But our ideals are just 
as vital as our interests. Here they are the same. For whatever else 
can be said, we all know that the foundation for building a house of 
democracy in China is the growth in numbers of independent property 
owning people, with their own economic base, free to resist the central 
government and tied in ever growing ways to the citadel of democracy, 
America. Although this takes time, this is the single best strategy for 
the long-term hopes of democracy in China. It may not give us the 
instant gratification we like, but it would plow the seed bed that has 
to be laid to make democracy grow.

  Here we would join in a vote for our interests and our ideals.

                          ____________________