[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 97 (Thursday, June 27, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6985-H6987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1300
         DISAPPROVAL OF MOST-FAVORED-NATION TREATMENT FOR CHINA

  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 463, I call up 
the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 182) disapproving the extension of 
nondiscriminatory treatment--most-favored-nation treatment--to the 
products of the People's Republic of China, and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 182 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 182

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
     Congress does not approve the extension of the authority 
     contained in section 402(c) of the Trade Act of 1974 
     recommended by the President to the Congress on May 31, 1996, 
     with respect to the People's Republic of China.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Pursuant to House Resolution 
463, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer] and the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Stark] will each be recognized for 1 hour.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer].
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield half of my 
time to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons] and that he be 
permitted to control that time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 30 minutes 
of my time to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] and that he be 
permitted to control that time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.


                             general leave

  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
to include extraneous material on House Joint Resolution 182.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I speak today in strong opposition to House Joint 
Resolution 182, which would disapprove the extension of most-favored-
nation status, or more accurately, normal trade relations to the 
People's Republic of China. On June 18, the Committee on Ways and Means 
reported this resolution adversely by an overwhelming bipartisan vote 
of 31 to 6.
  Mr. Speaker, all of us in this Chamber share a common goal of 
fostering freedom, democracy, and human rights in China. We of course 
have deep concerns about China's human rights record, which 
demonstrates that serious abuses and strong-arm tactics occur all too 
often. Yet, steady improvements over the decade in the daily lives of 
the Chinese people is also clearly in evidence.
  Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this resolution because it would have 
the effect of severing completely our trading relations with China. 
Such a step would be counterproductive to fostering the growth of 
freedom and democracy in that nation and would extinguish our ability 
to improve the human rights situation there.
  We have proof that the commercial opportunities set in motion by MFN 
trade status have given Chinese workers and firms a strong stake in the 
free market reforms occurring in China and allow our companies to lead 
by example in spreading our values and ideals throughout the country.

  We have no proof that ending this relationship would somehow force 
China to improve human rights in that country. We have isolated China 
before, and it did not work. The conditions were worse. Revoking MFN 
will be an empty gesture and could return us to that cold environment.
  In addition, United States commercial involvement with China is 
critical to our economic objectives. China, whose economy is now the 
third largest in the world, continues to embark on massive 
infrastructure programs, spending billions of dollars annually in 
sectors in which we lead: High technology, aerospace, petrochemical, 
and telecommunication. With per capita income doubling every 6 or 7 
years, the Chinese economy is expanding at an outstanding pace and has 
an insatiable appetite for goods.
  Our participation in that huge market translates directly into U.S. 
jobs. Our trade relationships with the Chinese have created 200,000 
high-paying jobs in the United States, with another 400,000 United 
States jobs indirectly supported in transportation, production, and 
distribution fields.
  Finally, our interests concerning national security are at stake in 
this debate. Our presence in China puts us in the best position to 
influence the Chinese Government concerning sensitive issues in the 
region, including North Korea, weapons proliferation, and military 
expansion in the South China Sea.

[[Page H6986]]

  The recent agreement with China on protecting intellectual property 
is powerful evidence that our existing section 301 process is effective 
in dealing with bilateral trade disputes between the United States and 
China that exists under current law. As a result, it is not necessary 
to use the heavy-handed threat of removing MFN to handle such issues.
  In the future, I intend to address whether it is in our best 
interests to change the annual review process so that we no longer are 
forced to put our trading relationship with China at risk every year. 
In addition, our committee will consider legislation that would change 
the misleading term, ``Most Favored Nation.'' The term implies that we 
are extending benefits that are greater than the normal tariffs that we 
extend to other nations under the World Trade Organization. However, we 
seek to do no more than to extend to China the same normal benefits 
that we give to all other trading partners.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the relationship between the 
United States and China is troubled. However, the solution is not to 
walk away. Instead, we should maintain free and open trade. That gives 
us the greatest opportunity to move step by step to a solution that 
would be far, far better in the minds of the American people.
  For all of these reasons, I am strongly opposed to severing relations 
with China, to bringing down the curtain, to denying engagement, to 
help to bring about in the years to come a better situation in that 
country, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, each year the President must seek a waiver 
from Congress to allow China to have most-favored-nation [MFN] status. 
Each year, China gives me at least one new reason to oppose normalized 
trade with China.
  China consistently and flagrantly violates our laws and repudiates 
our values. China was caught red-handed sending materials to create 
nuclear weapons--last year to Iran and this year to Pakistan. World 
peace threatened, just to make a buck.
  China's human rights violations have been a longstanding problem. Who 
among us could forget the sight of those tanks crushing students whose 
only crime was to meet publicly and peacefully to voice their 
opposition to their government? China still refuses its citizens the 
right to speak freely and to meet publicly.
  This year's transgressions implicate China's top government 
officials. A series of Chinese companies operated by the children of 
senior Chinese officials played a major role in the illicit copying of 
over $2 billion of United States commercial goods.
  Even worse, the son-in-law of China's top leader, Deng Shau Xiaoping, 
along with other relatives of top Chinese Government officials, has 
been implicated in the biggest seizure of illegal guns in our Nation's 
history. As you know, on May 22, 1996, U.S. customs officials 
intercepted $4 million worth of illegal AK-47 automatic weapons. The 
link between this illegal shipment and the Chinese Government is direct 
and indisputable.
  I wrote the President urging him to bar all trade in the United 
States with the companies involved in this outrageous gun running 
scheme. The problem is not just the companies but to the government of 
China which exhibits a pattern of flaunting of United States and 
international laws.
  The Chinese Government has no regard for the safety of our streets 
and our children, or the safety of our world. For these reasons, I 
adamantly oppose granting China favorable trading status.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Cardin].
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Stark] for yielding me this time.
  There is no dispute about the outrageous human rights violations in 
China. The government has silenced dissidents, and the Tiananmen Square 
episode could still occur today in China. The use of labor, slave 
labor, continues in China. In addition, China is responsible for 
nuclear proliferation, the proliferation of other weapons of mass 
destruction. There is no dispute about that.
  It is also clear that the conduct in China is financed because of 
access to the United States market. It is our consumers that are 
helping to finance the type of outrageous conduct within China. There 
is a lopsided balance of payment. We import $33 to $34 billion more 
products from China than we export ever year.
  The Jackson-Vanik provisions were expressly created in order to make 
it clear that access to the U.S. market is not automatic and that 
nonmarket economies that do not perform to a certain standard are 
denied access to our market.
  The United States has shown leadership before. It was the leadership 
of the United States to use trade sanctions in South Africa that 
brought down the apartheid practices of that country. It was the United 
States using the Jackson-Vanik provisions that changed the immigration 
policies of the Soviet Union. We have used trade policies in Uganda and 
Romania and other countries to bring about changes in those countries. 
When we exercise leadership, it is part of the proudest moments in the 
history of this country.
  Certainly there are naysayers, naysayers who have financial interests 
in continuing a relationship with China. We always hear that. But when 
we stand tall, we bring about change. The United States has done it 
before, we should do it in China, and I urge my colleagues to support 
this resolution to make it clear that access to the United States 
market in China must maintain a standard of acceptable conduct that 
they do not today.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CARDIN. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the remarks 
of the gentleman from Maryland and congratulate him on his well-
reasoned statement.
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to hear a lot of talk today about how bad 
things are in China. I am not here to rebut any of that. Yes, things 
are bad in China. They have been worse. We preferred to ignore them, 
though, when they were worse, because we did not have to face them.
  I first went to China in the early 1970's. At that time it was 
perfectly obvious that we were faced with a tremendous task of trying 
to pull a very backward and a very crude nation into the modern world. 
We have made progress; not all of the progress I want to make and not 
all of the progress we should make.
  However, by cutting off normal relationships, normal trade 
relationships to China, we would only succeed in isolating ourselves 
from China again and isolating the Chinese from the reality of the 
Western World. We should be building bridges at this time in our 
history, and not burning bridges.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a lot easier to burn bridges, and we have a lot of 
bridge-burners in our Congress here. It is far more difficult to build 
the bridges. What kind of bridges should we be building? We should be 
bringing more Chinese students and encouraging more Chinese students to 
come here and be exposed to the Western ideal. We should be sending our 
students to China to help expose them to our Western ideas. We need 
some innovative thoughts, which I would hope that some of the 
committees of this Congress could come up with, other than the burning-
bridge technique that is tried here on this resolution today.
  It is far more difficult to do that, but it will be far more 
productive if we think of China as how we can bring their thoughts and 
their ideas into the modern times, into the Western ideal, remembering 
all the time that they have had almost 6,000 years of isolation from 
Western ideas, that their standards are far different than ours, that 
conditions are, yes, bad in China, but they have been far worse, and we 
should continue trying to make them better rather than throwing bombs 
and getting out.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BUNNING of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
yield 15 minutes of my 30 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Rohrabacher] and that he be permitted to control that time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Kentucky?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BUNNING of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].

[[Page H6987]]

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I say to my colleagues, I sit here in continued amazement, because I 
keep hearing there is no disputing, from my side of the aisle by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer]; there is no disputing from the 
Democrat side of the aisle, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons], 
that this Chinese Government is a rogue government, that they keep 
proliferating with nuclear activity, they keep dehumanizing people, and 
it goes on and on and on, but there is no disputing all this. All of my 
colleagues know and they admit it, but then they make all of these 
kinds of excuses.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to stand up to the financial interests that 
consistently push for business as usual with the criminal regime in 
Beijing, and it is time to discard the false dogma that says that if we 
just keep trading with Communist China, things will get better.
  Some are comparing Communist China today to the depths of the 
Cultural Revolution 30 years ago when millions of people were being 
slaughtered, and they say that things have gotten better. Well, my 
goodness, Mr. Speaker, that is a pathetically low standard.
  The fact is the behavior of the Beijing dictatorship is much worse 
than it was 5 or even 10 years ago, and you all sit here today and 
admit it. The trade deficit which destroys American jobs has tripled in 
the last 10 years. We all know it. Their military budget has more than 
doubled when ours and every other military budget in the world has been 
going down. It was just 3 months ago that they were lobbing missiles 
right off the Taiwanese coast in an act of intimidation.
  Mr. Speaker, things are not getting better, they are getting worse 
and everybody in this Chamber knows it. How high does the trade deficit 
need to go before we react? How many more trade agreements does 
Communist China have to violate? You have all read about it in liberal 
newspapers, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, and how 
many people have to be imprisoned or killed for their political beliefs 
before we stand up on their behalf? Whatever happened to American 
foreign policy that looks out for human decency around this world? How 
much nuclear and chemical weapons material does Communist China have to 
ship to fellow rogue regimes, like Iran, our enemy, before we punish 
them? What will it take? Do they really have to make good on their 
threats to bomb Los Angeles?
  Mr. Speaker, this dictatorial regime represents a growing threat to 
American interests, American jobs, and yes, even more importantly to 
American lives. I say to my colleagues, do not come back here 15 years 
from now and say, my goodness, I did not know it. They must be dealt 
with now, Mr. Speaker. History shows us very clearly that appeasement 
of tyrants does not work. In fact, it leads to more intransigence.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. Speaker, I want everybody to come over to this Chamber and vote 
regardless of whether they have GE and IBM in their districts like I do 
with 25,000 employees and stand up for what is right in this country. 
We can cut off most-favored-nation treatment today and in a month we 
can restore it, because the Chinese will come to the table. They are 
smart people. They will then negotiate fair trade with this country, 
they will improve their human rights violations, and that is what this 
whole debate is all about.

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