[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 146 (Saturday, October 8, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     CODE OF CONDUCT FOR U.S. BUSINESSES IN CHINA: NEW LEGISLATION 
                               INTRODUCED

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 7, 1994

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, with President Clinton's decision last May 
to renew MFN for China and to cease the linkage between China's human 
rights performance and United States trade benefits, a turbulent issue 
in United States foreign policy has supposedly been laid to rest. I 
suggest to you, however, that it has merely been side-tracked. It will 
come back to haunt us because the Chinese regime has no intention of 
tolerating any independent political activity and continues to suppress 
brutally all attempts at freedom of expression, assembly, or worship. 
Indeed, in recent months both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty 
International have offered ample documentation of deteriorating human 
rights conditions in China.
  Yet opponents of the linkage policy insist that trade provides an 
avenue for constructive engagement with repressive regimes. They cite 
the Asian miracle as proof that over the long-run, China's economic 
development will foster political liberalization. In China, however, 
the long-run appears to be very long. Thus, the country with the 
world's fastest growing GNP, also runs a massive forced labor camp 
system, in comparison to which the Soviet Gulag pales. Change will come 
eventually, but can that allow us to be complacent in the face of 
enormous agony and suffering today and for the foreseeable future?
  Mr. Speaker, let's be honest about the trade-as-the-vehicle-of-change 
argument, and acknowledge that it lacks credibility in the case of 
China. More persuasive is the pragmatic concern raised by the business 
community: since the Europeans and Japanese are unwilling to condition 
trade with China on human rights, why should the United States 
disadvantage itself by doing so unilaterally?
  This is a serious issue, and it ultimately swayed the President. But 
I disagree with the President because I don't think that helping the 
PLA to modernize its weaponry and to boost its arms sales to rogue 
regimes is in the interest of the United States. It seems to me that we 
have allowed short-term commercial gain to blind us to long-term, 
fundamental security concerns.

                          ____________________