[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 25, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
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]

 
          EXTENDING MOST-FAVORED-NATION TRADE STATUS TO CHINA

  Mr. SIMPSON. I thank the Chair, my colleague from Nebraska, who came 
here when I did in the year of our Lord 1979. I wish to speak for a few 
moments on the issue of extending most favored nation trade status, or 
MFN, to China.
  Mr. President, I have been very pleased indeed during these last few 
days to hear a welling chorus of reasoned, sound arguments as to why 
MFN status should be extended for China. I find myself in whole-hearted 
agreement with the growing consensus that our values and our influence 
can be best advanced in China only through continuing trade and 
exchange.
  The quotations have been thus. ``We must not isolate China,'' it is 
said.

       Surely we can find other ways to promote the human rights 
     agenda. It makes no sense at all, surely, to simply pull back 
     and leave China to be influenced by other nations solely. 
     Other nations have more sense than to take such a spiteful 
     and self-defeating action.

  Let me read from one of the best summations of that argument:

       The President has made clear to the Chinese that their 
     respect for internationally-recognized human rights is 
     insufficient. . . We want to elicit a faster pace and a 
     broader scope for human rights improvements in China. 
     Withdrawal of MFN would achieve neither of these objectives. 
     . . [We should] maintain it in order vigorously to protect 
     American interests while we promote positive change in China.

  Here is another statement that reads almost exactly like that first 
one:

       [The President] needs to keep pressing the Chinese 
     government on human rights. And that's why he needs a better 
     instrument than the threat to lift MFN . . . The United 
     States has more effective ways to lean on China . . . [The 
     President] needs a strategy not to shut China out, but to 
     draw it more deeply into the fabric of international 
     agreements and organizations.

  Now, for the benefit of the general listeners, let me identify those 
two statements. The last one came from the Washington Post on this 
morning of May 25, 1994. It was followed up today on the floor by a 
number of statements by Democratic Senators, saying basically the same 
thing. All this, of course, is part of laying the groundwork for what 
many of us expect to come--a finding by the administration that MFN for 
China should be extended.
  I, personally, eagerly await such an announcement. I am all for it. 
It will be the right decision--if and when it comes.
  On the other hand, the first statement that I read to you was 
provided on June 2, 1992, by the Bush administration. It seems to me as 
though George Bush was at least 2 years more adroit in coming to wisdom 
than many of the experts we are hearing from today. Interestingly 
though, merely 2 days after that administration statement was given, we 
were treated to a series of very spirited speeches in this Chamber by 
Senators who were introducing legislation to provide for curtailing or 
sanctioning MFN to China.
  No fewer than six of those of the other faith spoke on that occasion. 
Among the remarks:
  ``The Bush administration remains an apologist for Beijing.''
  ``President Bush has chosen to ignore China's deplorable human rights 
record.''
  ``The principle stand for the beliefs upon which our own country was 
founded have been forgotten by President Bush.''
  And, ``That shames America's standard of human rights and decency.''
  These are strong words. I wonder why it is we are not hearing them 
now. I know why we are not hearing them now and one reason only: The 
White House is now occupied by President William Jefferson Clinton 
instead of George Herbert Walker Bush.
  I have not heard the word ``kowtow'' around here for a while. That 
used to be one of the old favorites. That was usually delivered with 
musical background and tinkling of various instruments. It must be very 
hard to keep, really, a straight face while writing the statements and 
editorials that we have heard in recent days. I imagine it must be very 
hard to type as one is chuckling with robust laughter, as surely the 
authors must be.
  I have an idea for all the original detractors. Try this one: Policy 
of conditional MFN is wrong. It was a mistake, m-i-s-t-a-k-e. It is 
wrong because it is an all-or-nothing threat. It is impractical because 
we and the Chinese know that we both come out as losers if we revoke 
MFN.
  MFN became an issue only and totally because the Democratic Congress 
and a then-Presidential candidate named Bill Clinton were trying to 
stick it to George Bush. Everyone out there in the land knows that, and 
here. That is partisan politics, and that is what we engage in very 
skillfully and very vigorously.
  But it seems to me that the current administration only compounds its 
public embarrassment by pretending that it is not reversing this 
politics-based policy that is so clearly now being reversed. We have a 
foreign policy problem--a thing, I believe we used to refer to it in 
years past--I might remind my colleagues, because we have a continual 
discrepancy between our foreign policy pronouncements and our deeds, 
and this exposes us to repeated embarrassment, in Bosnia, in China, in 
Haiti, in North Korea, and around the world.
  We all know what is going on here. The administration has to almost 
daily try to find a way to save face and to claim that there are not 
suddenly new reasons to support MFN extension which did not exist 1 
year ago. But there are not any; none. It was the right policy then, it 
is the right policy now. MFN is our best leverage in China, and, Mr. 
President, it always was.
  So I thank my colleagues for indulging my rather whimsical and 
iconoclastic view of the entire process. Often saying as I have that 
hypocrisy is the original sin in Washington, DC, whatever attributes 
have been made as to what original sin is, either theologically or 
realistically or historically, surely here it is hypocrisy. And I think 
the American public is neither so gullible nor so dim-domed as to think 
that President Clinton has magically now wrought a fundamental 
transformation of China during this past year, a transformation that 
now makes palatable a policy of engagement which, when endorsed by 
President Bush, was described as a tragic error.
  You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The whole world 
knows that we are clumsily and desperately trying to find our way out 
of an embarrassing box that was constructed board by board, yes, 
indeed, by Democrats wailing away on and campaigning against President 
Bush.
  MFN, trade, engagement, exchange, that has always been the way to 
address and advance our ideals in China. The whole world knew it, 
George Bush knew it, everyone seemed to know it except a few Democratic 
opportunists, malcontents and aspirants to public office. Now they need 
to pretend as though the attacks on President Bush's policy were based 
on ``something'' other than the 1992 election. We shall see.
  If President Clinton recommends extending MFN and Congress utters 
nary a protest--I surely will not--no one will need to explain to the 
American public what has happened and that, Mr. President, is one prime 
object lesson in how ``voter cynicism'' is created. I thank the Chair.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rockefeller). Is the Senator from Vermont 
the manager of the bill? There is nothing pending at this point. The 
Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I might 
proceed as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

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