[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 70 (Friday, May 23, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1061-E1062]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 MFN TRADE STATUS IS OUR BEST TOOL FOR IMPROVING HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. PHILIP M. CRANE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 22, 1997

  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, the President recently announced his 
intention to recommend the extension of most favored nation [MFN] trade 
status for China, a decision which I strongly support. A failure on 
America's part to extend MFN would be a grave error which would harm 
Chinese citizens, the very people MFN opponents want to help. The 
United States has numerous areas of conflict and disagreement with the 
Chinese Government, but all of these issues will be addressed more 
effectively in the context of maintaining normal trade relations. It is 
important for us to remember that, in the last 15 years, China has 
witnessed a dramatic improvement in its standard of living. Such 
improvement is due in no small part to the free-market economic reforms 
which are supported by our expanding trade relationship.
  As the House begins the annual debate on China's MFN status, I want 
to call Members' attention to an excellent article by Congressman David 
Dreier, Vice Chairman of the Rules Committee and a leader on trade 
matters in the House. Congressman Dreier makes a strong case in favor 
of promoting normal trade relations with China. The article, which was 
published in the May 19 issue of Insight magazine, discusses the 
benefits that economic reform has brought to the Chinese people and 
illustrates the dire need for this reform to continue.

                      [From Insight, May 19, 1997]

   Sanctions Would Undermine the Market Reforms That Have Initiated 
                            Positive Change

                           (By David Dreier)

       Fostering freedom and human rights around the world is a 
     universal foreign-policy goal in Congress. That was the case 
     in 1989, when I joined nearly a dozen of my colleagues, 
     Democrats and Republicans, in a march to the front door of 
     the Chinese Embassy to protest the brutal massacre of student 
     protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It remains a 
     bipartisan priority today because support for freedom and 
     democracy is part and parcel of what it means to be American.
       The current debate in Congress is not about the goal of 
     ending human-rights abuses in China but about the 
     effectiveness of economic sanctions as a means to achieve 
     that goal. It would be a mistake for China's leaders to 
     interpret this debate as a weakening of our resolve.
       In looking at conditions in China during the last 20 years, 
     the path to democracy of numerous countries around the globe 
     and the effectiveness of unilateral economic sanctions to 
     improve human rights for people living under the boot of 
     other repressive regimes, it becomes unmistakably clear that 
     such sanctions will not improve human rights in China. If 
     anything, economic sanctions will set back the cause of 
     freedom.
       Achieving greater human freedom in China is an important 
     priority if for no other reason than the fact that one-fifth 
     of the human race lives in that vast country. Today, the 
     Chinese people lack individual rights, political freedom and 
     freedom of speech, religion,

[[Page E1062]]

     association and the press. Even the most basic human freedom 
     of childbearing is regulated by the authoritarian national 
     government.
       When looking at repression in China, however, I am reminded 
     of the ancient saying that, in the land of the blind, the 
     one-eyed man is king. It does no good to evaluate progress 
     toward freedom in China by comparing it with the United 
     States or any other democracy. Instead, a historical 
     perspective is needed.
       While China offers a 4,000-year story of political 
     repression, some of its bleakest days have come in the last 
     generation. More than 60 million Chinese starved to death 
     during Mao Tse-tung's disastrous Great Leap Forward, and 
     another million were murdered by the Communists during the 
     international isolation of Mao's Cultural Revolution. The 
     Chinese were scarred by those brutal events, and no one wants 
     to return to the terror of economic calamity and starvation.
       Stapelton Roy, the former American ambassador to China, put 
     the current conditions in China in the following perspective: 
     ``If you look at the 150 years of modern Chinese history . . 
     . you can't avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are 
     the best 15 years in China's modern history. And of those 15 
     years, the last two years are the best in terms of 
     prosperity, individual choice, access to outside information, 
     freedom of movement within the country and stable domestic 
     conditions.''
       Today, the Chinese economy is the fastest growing in the 
     world. While many Chinese remain poor peasants, few go 
     hungry, and hundreds of millions of Chinese have seen their 
     lives substantially improved through economic reform. Many 
     enjoy greater material wealth and a greater degree of 
     personal economic freedom. Market reform is the single most 
     powerful force for positive change in China in this century 
     and possibly in the country's long history. The recent 
     economic progress, which significantly has improved living 
     conditions in China, is a profound moral victory. Fostering 
     further positive change is a moral imperative as well.
       As reported in the March 4 New York Times, Zhu Wenjun, a 
     woman living outside Shanghai, has seen her life improve 
     dramatically due to economic reform. Zhu, 45, quit a teaching 
     job that paid $25 a month to work for a company that exports 
     toys and garments that pays $360 a month. ``It used to be 
     that when you became a teacher, you were a teacher for 
     life,'' Zhu was quoted as saying. ``Now you can switch jobs. 
     Now I am talking with people overseas and thinking about 
     economic issues.''
       Economic reform in China has helped to lift hundreds of 
     millions of hardworking people from desperate poverty, giving 
     them choices and opportunities never available before. 
     Hundreds of millions of Chinese have access to information 
     and contact with Western values through technologies 
     spreading across the country, thanks to economic reform and 
     the growth it created. This is a tremendous victory for human 
     freedom.
       Americans are justified in their outrage about the Chinese 
     government's policy methods of population control. This has 
     led many Chinese families to abort female babies with the 
     hope of having a son. Here again, moral outrage and economic 
     sanctions will not be enough to end this violation of basic 
     human rights.
       The New York Times reported another encouraging story from 
     inside China that shows how economic reform undermines 
     repression, including China's one-child policy. Ye Xiuying is 
     a 26-year-old woman who runs a small clock shop in Dongguan, 
     a small town in Guangdong province. Through her own 
     entrepreneurial spirit and energy, she rose from a $35-per-
     month factory worker to running her own business and earning 
     up to $1,200 a month. Along with buying a home and looking 
     forward to traveling to the United States, Ye used $1,800 to 
     pay the one-time government fine so she could have a second 
     child.
       The hopeful stories of Zhu and Ye have been repeated many, 
     many times across China during the last 15 years. That is why 
     Nicholas Kristoff, former New York Times Beijing bureau 
     chief, said, ``Talk to Chinese peasants, workers and 
     intellectuals and on one subject you get virtual unanimity: 
     `Don't curb trade.' ''
       The Chinese are learning firsthand one of the great truths 
     of the late 20th century: Market-oriented reforms promote 
     private enterprise, which encourages trade, which creates 
     wealth, which improves living standards, which undermines 
     political repression.
       While full political freedom for the Chinese may be decades 
     away, other hopeful signs of change exist. Today, 500 million 
     Chinese farmers experience local democracy, voting in 
     competitive village elections in which winners are not 
     Communist candidates. The Chinese government also is 
     recognizing that the rule of law is a necessary underpinning 
     of a true market economy. Furthermore, the Chinese media, 
     while strictly censored, increasingly are outside the control 
     of the party and the state. In particular, the spread of 
     communications technology throughout China, including 
     telephones, fax machines, computers, the Internet, satellites 
     and television, is weakening the state's grip on information.
       The evidence that market reforms are the main engine 
     driving improved human rights in China is mirrored around the 
     globe. South Korea, Taiwan, Chile and Argentina all broke the 
     chains of authoritarian dictatorship and political repression 
     during the last 25 years primarily because their respective 
     governments adopted market-based economic reforms. As a 
     result, each country grew wealthier and more open and each 
     eventually evolved into democracies.
       The cause of human freedom advanced in those instances in 
     which the United States did not employ economic sanctions 
     against dictatorships. In contrast, decades of American 
     economic sanctions against Iran, Iraq, Libya and Cuba, while 
     merited on national-security grounds, only have led to 
     greater economic and political repression.
       The real-world failure of economic sanctions to result in 
     human-rights gains has left proponents of sanctions groping 
     for new arguments. The argument du jour is that China is our 
     next Cold War adversary, and since the United States used 
     trade sanctions against the Soviet Union in a successful Cold 
     War campaign, the same strategy should be applied to China.
       This line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. A Cold War 
     with China is unthinkable absent the support of our 
     international allies, and the simple reality is that a Cold 
     War strategy would garner no support. During the Cold War 
     with the Soviet Union, the world's democracies by and large 
     saw an aggressive military opponent bent on undermining 
     democracy around the world. Today, China is not viewed as a 
     similar threat to democracy nor to international peace and 
     security. China's neighbors, while concerned with that 
     country's evolution as a major economic and political power, 
     do not advocate Cold War-style confrontation. The United 
     States' closest allies in Asia--Japan, Korea, Australia and 
     Thailand--strongly oppose economic warfare with China. They 
     see economic reform as a condition of peace and security in 
     the region.
       The unwillingness of our allies to join us in a crusade 
     against China largely is based on the fact that China has not 
     earned international enmity. The Soviet Union conquered its 
     neighbors in Eastern Europe and imposed puppet regimes on 
     previously independent countries. They invaded Afghanistan 
     and instigated violent insurrections throughout Africa, Latin 
     America and Asia. The Soviet Union earned the Ronald Reagan 
     label, ``evil empire.'' Chinese foreign policy, even with its 
     distressing proliferation policies, is in a different league 
     altogether.
       The national-security rationale for anti-China sanctions is 
     as weak as the human-rights arguments. Just as economic 
     engagement consistently has proved to be the best human-
     rights policy, Cold War-style economic sanctions are 
     national-security fool's gold. Imposing economic sanctions on 
     China would throw away the real progress of the last 15 years 
     and send 1.2 billion people to the darkest days of Maoism. 
     When Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to ``tear down this 
     wall,'' he demanded freedom for Eastern Europeans to mingle 
     with the West--just the opposite of the spirit of trade 
     sanctions against China, which attempt to erect new walls 
     around the Chinese people.
       Economic sanctions, especially when imposed unilaterally, 
     are not an effective tool to promote human rights. Economic 
     sanctions against China would undermine the market reforms 
     that have been the single most powerful force for positive 
     change in that country. They could shatter the hopes and 
     dreams of 20 percent of the human race seeking to rise above 
     the poverty and oppression that have been staples of Chinese 
     history.

     

                          ____________________