[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 3, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5260-S5264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HELMS (for himself, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Hutchinson, and Mr. 
        Wellstone):
  S.J. Res. 31. A joint resolution disapproving the extension of 
nondiscriminatory treatment (most-favored-nation treatment) to the 
products of the People's Republic of China; to the Committee on 
Finance.


       MOST-FAVORED-NATION TREATMENT DISAPPROVAL JOINT RESOLUTION

  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, in offering this resolution, Mr. President, 
which formally disapproves President Clinton's renewal of MFN for 
China, I am pleased that the able Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Feingold] 
is a principal cosponsor of the resolution of disapproval.
  In moving around my State during the Memorial Day recess I was 
impressed with the attitude of a majority of North Carolinians who are 
absolutely persuaded that the United States must conduct its policy 
toward China on the basis of morality as well as pragmatism. It has 
made no sense either morally or practically for the United States to 
have conducted its China policy as it has for so long.
  There are many who are asserting the truth that the term MFN, which 
stands for most favored nation, is certainly a misnomer. MFN, in fact, 
means that a country gets trade treatment as good as anybody else's, 
not that it gets more favorable treatment than any other country. I 
accept that and I oppose MFN on exactly those grounds. China gets the 
same trade treatment that virtually everybody else gets. When a country 
like China gets normal trade relations with the United States it is 
getting better treatment than China deserves. That is just plain 
foolish.
  Those who favor MFN for Communist China also like to point out that 
other countries with at least equally dubious records--like Iran, Iraq, 
Syria, Libya and Burma--qualify for MFN without an annual debate. 
Therefore, the proMFN crowd says China ought to get MFN without an 
annual debate.
  I dissent. The trouble with that, Mr. President, is this. Those 
people who rely on the cases of these countries to make their points 
about MFN for China just have not done their homework. It is 
disingenuous at best for the proMFN lobby to create the impression that 
Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria, enjoy MFN status, because they absolutely

[[Page S5261]]

do not. MFN for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya is a moot point since 
nearly all trade is banned with them due to their involvement in state-
sponsored terrorism.
  Burma may technically have MFN status but it, also, is the subject of 
a ban on new United States investment. Syria and Burma both are denied 
low-tariff benefits under the generalized system of preferences. 
Besides that, policies against individual countries have evolved in 
response to historical developments and the needs of U.S. policy. No 
proponent of MFN renewal would say that the United States should treat 
every country exactly the same way regardless of specific conditions 
inside the country, the type of government it has, or the type of 
threat it poses to the United States or to the neighbors of the United 
States.
  Now, China is a special case, Mr. President. When you stop to think 
about it there is no valid reason for the United States--this is the 
world's leader in freedom--offering the same trading terms for China 
that the United States offers to other nations that do honor their 
citizens' human rights and that do respect the rule of law. Now, there 
can be no such thing as normal trade with the world's largest country, 
a Communist system engaging in proliferation of conventional nuclear, 
biological, and chemical weapons.
  A country of which our State Department can say, there was not a 
single dissident active in 1996.
  A country which is violating commitments it made in an international 
agreement to preserve Hong Kong's institutions and way of life 
virtually intact.
  A country whose economy is built on prison labor and Peoples 
Liberation Army joint ventures with U.S. companies.
  A country which fires missiles across the Taiwan strait in an attempt 
to intimidate the people of Taiwan from conducting democratic 
elections.
  A country which makes money from organ transplants taken from 
prisoners, who have just been shot in the head.
  A country which has a policy of forced abortion.
  A country which has systematically destroyed Tibet's religion and 
culture.
  A country which violates international law in the South China Sea.
  A country which has a huge and growing trade deficit with the United 
States.
  It matters not whether one calls China's trade status most favored 
nation, or normal trade relations as the White House Office of 
``newspeak'' wishes to call it. Either way, it's a bad policy, when one 
considers that in every important area of United States-China 
relations--from weapons proliferation, to human rights, to trade and 
intellectual property, to Hong Kong--the White House crowd has made the 
word ``engagement'' synonymous with the word ``appeasement.''
  Let's talk for a little while about China's record of weapons 
proliferation. In April, a subcommittee of the Governmental Affairs 
Committee chaired by the able Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. Cochran], 
held a hearing which laid out the truth about Chinese proliferation, 
that this administration has repeatedly failed to impose sanctions 
required by United States law for China's transfers of equipment, 
components and weapons of mass destruction to Iran and Pakistan.
  On human rights, the State Department acknowledges continued 
widespread abuse of human rights by China. This year's annual human 
rights report catalogues violations of rights of speech, assembly, and 
association, and abuses including extra-judicial punishment, prison 
labor, and religious repression.
  Even more shocking than the extent of these abuses is the 
administration's refusal to use United States leverage to influence 
China, or even United States allies. This year, the United States 
failed to mount a credible campaign to introduce and pass a resolution 
condemning Chinese human rights abuses at the U.N. Human Rights 
Commission in Geneva.
  The Commission's meeting is not a mystery. It is scheduled a year in 
advance. Yet this administration did almost no lobbying until the last 
minute. That's because the administration hoped against hope that the 
Vice President's trip to China would result in some concessions by the 
Chinese which would enable the administration to abandon the resolution 
once and for all.
  But just guess what happened. China did not make concessions to Vice 
President Gore and the Clinton administration was left trying to put 
together a coalition at Geneva.
  In trade, the story is the same. There is absolutely no improvement. 
The United States trade deficit with China climbed once again this 
year, to just under 40 percent. According to the President, that's an 
increase of 17 percent over last year. United States companies have 
precious little access to China's market, even as they are pouring 
investment into China. Sometimes, United States companies deal with the 
People's Liberation Army. Sometimes they deal with factories using with 
prison labor. That is the way the game is played--under cover, under 
the table.
  The United States buys 30 percent of China's exports. Yet China makes 
up just 2 percent of the United States export market--30 vs. 2. This 
past year, United States exports to Taiwan, Hong Kong--and even to 
Belgium, if you believe that, were greater than United States exports 
to China, even though the populations of each of these countries are a 
tiny fraction of China's population.
  Just the same, we hear the same old rhetoric from certain 
businessmen. They come to my office day after day. I like them. I am 
sorry I can't agree with them. But I tell them I do not agree with 
them. They sit there and contend that the United States needs to trade 
with China. It will open up society; that is to say, the Chinese 
society, they say. But what is going on in China isn't free trade but 
trade on the Chinese Government's terms, which can be changed every 
hour on the hour.
  The Chinese military operates commercial enterprises. Let me repeat 
that. The Chinese military army, all the rest of it, they are in 
business. They do that so they can pay for the ever-growing cost of 
operating their military establishment--and, by the way, collect 
technology from the United States and other sucker governments who send 
it to them.
  No rule of law protects Chinese or foreign investors. Official 
corruption is widespread, and everybody knows it. A disagreement with a 
business partner who has an official connection can land you in jail in 
China, or worse. You might be one of the guys hauled out on that field 
tomorrow morning with a bullet through your head so that one of your 
organs can be sold for $40,000 cash money.
  Want a run down of stories you won't hear from those lobbying 
Congress for MFN?
  In 1994, Revpower, a Florida company won an international arbitration 
award against a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Despite China's 
obligations as a party to the 1958 Convention on Recognition and 
Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, China has failed to enforce the 
award in its courts.
  In 1994, James Peng, an Australian citizen, was seized by Chinese 
police in Macau--which is not yet under Chinese control--and taken to 
China. In this case, the court found Peng innocent of any wrongdoing, 
but local officials who saw an opportunity to extort money from Peng 
and his partners. Peng has been in jail ever since.
  Troy McBride, a United States businessman, had his passport seized 
and was detained for several weeks in a hotel in China in 1995. You can 
read about this in last year's State Department Human Rights Report.
  According to the Chicago Tribune, Philip Cheng, a Chinese-American, 
was jailed without charges in 1993 over a dispute with his joint 
venture partner. In the story about Mr. Cheng, a Western diplomat was 
quoted as saying:

       When a deal goes sour we only hear about the worst cases. 
     But dozens, perhaps hundreds of businessmen have been mobbed, 
     punched and even jailed to make them pay what the locals 
     demand. In most cases the victims make no fuss because their 
     companies want to keep doing business in China.

  Zhang Gueixing, a U.S. resident immigrant was imprisoned for 2\1/2\ 
years in connection with a dispute over bicycles. While in prison, 
Zhang witnessed executions of prisoners.
  China has steadily reneged on its commitments in the 1984 Joint 
Declaration. In that agreement, China

[[Page S5262]]

promised that Hong Kong would have an elected legislature, an 
accountable executive, an independent judiciary, and a broad range of 
personal and political freedoms including rights of speech, assembly, 
association, and religion. For the past several years China has first 
announced a violation of the joint declaration, then carried it out. 
This is all a matter of public record.
  Yet, the United States has failed to prevent or reverse a single 
violation of the joint declaration. How can it when the 
administration's official position is that the United States is not 
entitled to say what does or does not violate the Joint Declaration?
  Where the President will not lead, the Congress must act. An 
editorial from The Weekly Standard noted that:

       The Clinton Administration obstinately refuses to link U.S. 
     China policy to anything the Chinese do or fail to do. 
     Linkage must be reestablished; equilibrium must be restored 
     to the relationship between the United States and its most 
     troublesome and persistent challenger. That mission falls to 
     the Congress by default.

  For far too long, the United States has failed to recognize and use 
its leverage over China.
  Mr. President, revoking MFN will not be the end of our China policy. 
MFN is the means toward restoring equilibrium in the relationship.
  China scholar Harry Harding's book, ``A Fragile Relationship,'' 
chronicles the early 1990's, when there was a real threat of MFN 
revocation in response to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In response to 
the threat Beijing ended martial law, released several hundred 
political prisoners, bought Boeing aircraft and let a prominent 
dissident out of the country.
  The Congress should withhold MFN status for China this year, 
otherwise the administration will continue to acquiesce to every 
violation of international law, international agreement, bilateral 
agreement, and United States law. The administration's policy toward 
China has been an abject failure. Abject, means both ``utterly 
hopeless'' and ``shamelessly servile.'' Which, it seems to me, fairly 
sums up the situation.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution will be appropriately 
referred.
 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the Chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee [Mr. Helms] and I have today introduced a joint 
resolution of disapproval for the President's decision to extend most-
favored-nation status to China.
  This is third year in a row that I will be introducing this joint 
resolution, and--I am pleased to say--the second time with Senator 
Helms. I have joined with the chairman once again because I believe 
that trade policy is an effective tool that the United States can and 
should use with respect to the Chinese Government. I am pleased that 
Senators Wellstone and Hutchinson of Arkansas have joined us in 
introducing this bipartisan resolution.
  Mr. President, on May 19, President Clinton announced his intention 
to extend for another year most-favored-nation trading status to China, 
which he formally requested from the Congress last week. Although we 
have expected the President to make such a decision for some time now, 
I can only say that I am once again disappointed in the President's 
decision. In fact, I have objected to the President's policy regarding 
the extension of MFN status to China since 1994, when he de-linked the 
issue of human rights from our trading policy. The argument made then 
is that trade rights and human rights are not interrelated. At the same 
time, it was said, through ``constructive engagement'' on economic 
matters, and dialogue on other issues, including human rights, the 
United States could better influence the behavior of the Chinese 
Government.
  That was a mistake.
  Let those who support ``constructive engagement'' visit the terribly 
ill Wei Jingsheng in his prison cell, and ask him if developing markets 
for toothpaste or breakfast cereal will help him win his freedom or 
save his life. I do not see how closer economic ties alone will somehow 
transform China's authoritarian system into a more democratic one. 
Unless we press the case for improvement in China's human rights 
record, using the leverage afforded us by the Chinese Government's 
desire to expand its economy and increase trade with us, I do not see 
how conditions will get much better.
  De-linking MFN has resulted only in the continued despair of millions 
of Chinese people, and there is no evidence that MFN has influenced 
Beijing to improve its human rights policies. Basic freedoms--of 
expression, of religion, of association--are routinely denied. Rule of 
law, at least as I would define it, does not exist.
  Mr. President, shortly before the Memorial Day recess, the Foreign 
Relations Committee held several hearings on the current situation in 
China. We had, for example, an excellent hearing on the situation in 
Tibet, where China continues its cultural and political repression and 
still refuses to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, a Nobel 
laureate. We also heard testimony about how China is not sticking to 
its commitments under a 1992 Memorandum of Understanding with the 
United States on the issue of the use of forced prison labor. It is 
unconscionable that American consumers have unwittingly been used to 
help finance the abhorrent Chinese policy of reform through labor.
  And that is not all.
  Virtually every review of the behavior of the Chinese Government over 
the past year demonstrates that not only has there been no improvement 
in the human rights situation in China, but in many cases, it has 
worsened.
  Now, 3 years after the President's decision to de-link MFN from human 
rights, the State Department's most recent Human Rights report on China 
describes, once again, an abysmal situation. According to the report,

       The Government continued to commit widespread and well-
     documented human rights abuses, in violation of 
     internationally accepted norms, stemming from the 
     authorities' intolerance of dissent, fear of unrest, and 
     the absence or inadequacy of laws protecting basic 
     freedoms. . . . Abuses included torture and mistreatment 
     of prisoners, forced confessions, and arbitrary and 
     lengthy incommunicado detention. Prison conditions 
     remained harsh. The Government continued severe 
     restrictions on freedom of speech, the press, assembly, 
     association, religion, privacy, and worker rights.

  In October 1996, we were witness to yet another example of these 
policies, when Wang Dan, one of the leaders of the 1989 pro-democracy 
demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, was sentenced to 11 years in 
prison. This was, of course, after he had already been held in 
incommunicado detention for 17 months in connection with the issuance 
of a pro-democracy petition. Many political prisoners--some whose names 
we know, like Mr. Wang and Mr. Wei, and many of whose names we do not--
have become ill as a result of their prolonged incarcerations, and are 
not receiving proper medical care.
  The past year also saw the December arrest of Ngawang Choepel, a 
Tibetan musicologist and former Fulbright scholar who was the subject 
of a recent Moynihan resolution that I was proud to cosponsor. Also in 
December, a Beijing court sentenced activist Li Hai for collecting 
information on Tiananmen activists in prison. Li was trying to compile 
a list giving the name, age, family situation, crime, length of 
sentence, and the location of the prison in which these activists were 
held.
  In June 1996, university teacher Zhang Zong-ai was arrested and later 
sentenced for meeting with Wang Dan and writing to Taiwanese leaders. 
Earlier this year, reports emerged from Tibet indicating severe torture 
of Tibetan nuns allegedly involved in separatist activities.
  Freedom of expression is curtailed by other means as well. Although 
the government has recently encouraged the expansion of the Internet 
and other communications infrastructure, it requires Internet users to 
register and sign a pledge not to endanger security. Selected web 
sites, like those from news organizations based in Hong Kong and 
Taiwan, or those hosted by dissidents, are blocked by the government, 
and authorities continue to jam Voice of America broadcasts.
  Mr. President, Beijing's contempt for United States values is evident 
in many fora: in the loathsome compulsory one-child family planning 
program, in the increased incidence of religious persecution, in the 
sales of nuclear equipment to Pakistan or missiles to Iran, and in 
China's utter disregard for agreements to end violations of United 
States intellectual property

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rights. Lack of progress in these areas flies in the face of the United 
States policy of ``constructive engagement,'' with respect to China.
  In my view--and I know that Senator Helms agrees with me here--it is 
impossible to come to any other conclusion except that ``constructive 
engagement'' has failed to make any change in Beijing's human rights 
behavior. I would say that the evidence justifies the exact opposite 
conclusion: human rights have deteriorated and the regime continues to 
act recklessly in other areas vital to U.S. national interest.
  At the May 13, 1997, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on 
The Situation of Tibet and its People, Dr. Robert Thurman, a renowned 
expert in Tibetan culture who has traveled to the region numerous times 
over the past 35 years, presented compelling testimony about the 
Chinese Government's intentions toward the Tibetan people. Dr. Thurman 
explained quite clearly that, ``It is a calculated policy consistent 
[of the] Chinese Government . . . to eradicate those who might some day 
claim the land of Tibet back to them.'' In order to achieve this goal, 
Dr. Thurman explained, the Chinese Government engages in all kinds of 
activities to destroy Tibetan culture, Tibetan religion and Tibetan 
identity, and in so doing, attempts to assimilate Tibetans into the 
Chinese way of life.
  But what was most striking about Dr. Thurman's testimony was his 
description of the behavior of the Chinese Government over the past 3 
years, and in particular, Beijing's reaction to United States trade 
policy. Mr. President, allow me to read from his oral testimony:

       It is definitely a fact that anyone who goes to Tibet 
     regularly--and I have been there eight times--anyone who goes 
     there regularly will tell you that since 1994, when our 
     Executive Branch misguidedly delinked . . . trade 
     privileges from the Chinese behavior, the Chinese behavior 
     accelerated in a negative direction to an extreme degree. 
     Since 1994, the complete oppression of Tibetan religion 
     and the Tibetan national identity has been reembarked upon 
     by the recent and current administration in China. From 
     1994 to 1997, their policy has returned to being 
     completely genocidal, no longer pretending even to 
     tolerate Tibetan religion. . . . They have expelled many 
     monks from monasteries. They have closed important 
     monasteries. . . . [The Chinese] will never abandon 
     [Tibet] when they feel we have no real will to do anything 
     serious no matter what they do. . . . This has been proven 
     in religious terms . . . in the last three years, since 
     1994. Once you delinked the money from their treatment of 
     human rights, from their treatment of religion in Tibet, 
     they just went and completely abused everything totally. 
     They undid all sorts of liberties that had been allowed in 
     the 1980s, in fact. They completely have undone them.

  So, Mr. President, we have here compelling testimony of my main 
argument: that the delinking of trade privileges from human rights 
issues has actually led to a worsening of the human rights situation in 
China.
  Perhaps equally disturbing, China continues to violate agreements 
with the United States on other issues. Violations of agreements on 
intellectual property rights cost U.S. firms an estimated $1.8 billion 
annually. Violations of the memorandum of understanding on prison 
labor, according to some estimates, have resulted in millions of 
dollars worth of tainted goods being imported into our country. And 
China's blatant disregard for international efforts to control nuclear 
proliferation cost us unimaginable sums in future international 
security.
  We have so few levers that we can use against China. And if China is 
accepted by the international community as a superpower under the 
current conditions, it will believe it can continue to abuse human 
rights with impunity. The more we ignore the signals and allow trade to 
dictate our policy, the worse we can expect the human rights situation 
to become.
  We know that putting pressure on the Chinese Government can have some 
impact. China released dissident Harry Wu from prison when his case 
threatened to disrupt the First Lady's trip to Beijing for the U.N. 
Conference on Women, and it similarly released both Wei Jingsheng and 
Wang Dan around the same time that China was pushing to have the 2000 
Olympic Games in Beijing. After losing that bid, and once the spotlight 
was off, the Chinese government rearrested both Wei and Wang.
  Examples such as this only affirm my belief that the United States 
should make it clear that human rights are of real--as opposed to 
rhetorical--concern to this country. Until Wei Jingsheng, Wang Dan, and 
others committed to reform in China are allowed to speak their voices 
freely and work for change, United States-China relations should not be 
based on a business-as-usual basis. Last Sunday, Fred Hiatt illustrated 
this point in a Washington Post editorial called The Skyscraper and the 
Bookstore. In recalling the 1993 tour of Beijing that Chinese leaders 
offered to Mr. Wei after he had been in prison for 14 years, Hiatt 
wonders whether the skyscraper, a powerful symbol of Western-style 
economic modernization, or a bookstore, in which Wei found little 
literary diversity, is the more significant portent for China's future. 
Hiatt's point is that the more the United States focuses on its trade 
and economic relations with China, the more skyscrapers might be built 
in Beijing. But despite massive urban development, there has not been 
massive development in the most basic freedoms of expression and ideas.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of Hiatt's 
June 1, 1997, Washington Post op-ed be included in the Record.
  Mr. President, this year--1997--is perhaps the most important year 
since 1989 with respect to our relationship with the Chinese 
Government. In less than 1 month, Hong Kong will revert to China, and 
already there are fears of what the transition may mean for democratic 
liberties in that city. There may also be significant developments with 
respect to China's desire to join the World Trade Organization. And of 
course, there are the myriad other issues I have already mentioned.
  But even with all that is going on, the United States and others in 
the international community failed to pass a resolution regarding China 
at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights earlier this year 
largely because China lobbied hard to prevent it. That failure proves 
that it is even more important for the United States to use the levers 
that we do have to pressure China's leaders.

  Mr. President, if moral outrage at blatant abuse of human rights is 
not reason enough for taking a tough stance with China--and I believe 
it is and that the American people do as well--then let us do so on 
grounds of real political and economic self-interest. We must not 
forget that we currently have a trade deficit of nearly $40 billion. 
Forty billion dollars. Political considerations aside, such a deficit 
represents a formidable obstacle to developing normal trading relations 
with China at any point in the near future. Plus, China is becoming 
more and more dangerously involved in nefarious arms dealings with Iran 
and Pakistan.
  But, Mr. President, my main objective today is to push for the United 
States to once again make the link between human rights and trading 
relations with respect to our policy in China. As I have said before, I 
believe that trade--embodied by the peculiar annual exercise of MFN 
renewal--is one of the most powerful levers we have, and that it was a 
mistake for the President to de-link this exercise from human rights 
considerations.
  So, Mr. President, for those who care about human rights, about 
freedom of religion, and about America's moral leadership in the world, 
I urge support for the Helms-Feingold resolution disapproving the 
President's decision to renew most-favored-nation status for China.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, June 1, 1997]

                    The Skyscraper and the Bookstore

                            (By Fred Hiatt)

       After keeping him in prison for 14 years, Chinese leaders 
     decided one day in 1993 to give their leading dissident, Wei 
     Jingsheng, a tour of Beijing. For Wei, the tour produced a 
     shock--and perhaps something of a reproof as well. Wei had 
     been writing from his solitary cell that economic 
     modernization could not take place without democracy; yet the 
     sleepy capital he remembered from 1979, with only bicycles 
     clogging its wide boulevards, had become a modern city with 
     traffic jams, skyscrapers and fancy new hotels.
       ``The changes are enormous,'' Wei admitted. ``They made an 
     old Beijinger like myself feel like a tourist--a stranger in 
     his own hometown.''
       But then Wei insisted that his keepers take him to a 
     bookstore. There he found offerings no broader than they had 
     been before the Cultural Revolution. The economy had

[[Page S5264]]

     expanded, but freedom of thought and expression had not. 
     ``But this is precisely your goal,'' Wei wrote to China's 
     president. ``Widespread cultural ignorance is the foundation 
     for dictatorship.''
       The contrast Wei noted during his brief field trip from 
     jail underlies Washington's current debate over extending 
     most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status to China and, more 
     broadly, U.S.-China relations. Which is the more significant 
     portent for China's future, the skyscraper or the bookshop?
       Those who favor MFN extension point to the skyscraper, 
     arguing that economic modernization inevitably will lead to 
     political liberalization--that if you get enough skyscrapers, 
     eventually you'll get books and newspapers, too. This has 
     been the pattern in South Korea and Taiwan, after all, where 
     a rising middle class eventually insisted on democratic 
     rights. Even in China, where authoritarian rulers maintain 
     tight political control, market reforms have brought new 
     freedoms--to choose one's place of work and residence, to 
     live private and personal lives.
       Yet a South Korea-style progression is not inevitable. Nazi 
     Germany proved that a totalitarian political regime can 
     comfortably co-exist with capitalism--with private 
     shopkeepers, big corporations, a developed middle class.
       Ah, but the advent of the information age has changed all 
     that, the argument continues. Knowledge is the essential 
     commodity of tomorrow's economies, and no nation that limits 
     its flow can prosper.
       It's a seductive argument, and it may be true in the very 
     long run. The demise of the Soviet Union, where even a 
     copying machine was considered subversive, gave currency to 
     the view. But totalitarian regimes can use information 
     technologies as well as be undermined by them as George 
     Orwell realized some time ago. China's regime so far has 
     proved far more adept than the Soviet Union at attracting 
     commercial knowledge and technology from outside while 
     controlling the political debate inside--intimidating print 
     media in Hong Kong, monitoring Internet access in China, 
     whipping up nationalistic fervor to promote its own survival.
       So China might become more democratic; it also might become 
     more fascist, a danger to its neighbors and to U.S. 
     interests, too. Given that uncertainty, the debate shifts: 
     Can other nations do anything to steer China toward the first 
     outcome? Supporters of MFN extension argue that trade 
     sanctions won't work; China ``has steadfastly resisted 
     efforts to link its commercial interests to its behavior in 
     other areas,'' Laura D'Andrea Tyson, President Clinton's 
     first term economic adviser, wrote in the Wall Street Journal 
     last week.
       This isn't quite right either. In the few years after the 
     Tiananmen Square massacre, when China's leaders believed 
     Congress would impose serious sanctions, they released 
     political prisoners and allowed a leading dissident to go 
     into exile. Once President Clinton ``delinked'' trade and 
     human rights, the concessions stopped.
       Yet trade sanctions are surely an imperfect tool. Are there 
     others? Tyson argues that ``with the limited means at our 
     disposal, we can try to shape the kind of great power China 
     will become and the path it will travel to get there.'' She 
     doesn't say what those means might be, but in 1994 the 
     Clinton administration produced a long list of possibilities. 
     The United States would no longer use MFN as a lever, Clinton 
     said then, but it would prod China in many other ways: 
     supporting ``civic society,'' pushing human rights issues in 
     international forums, working with U.S. businesses to develop 
     voluntary principles for operating in China and more.
       Unfortunately, most of these resolutions fell by the 
     wayside, some right away, some after a few years. Clinton's 
     promise to use non-trade methods to ``try to shape'' China, 
     in Tyson's words, proved to be more spin than policy, so the 
     concept was never really put to the test. As a result, 
     political freedoms in China are, if anything, more 
     restricted, and many in Congress see MFN as the only way to 
     send a message.
       Wei is back in prison and unavailable for comment on this 
     turn of events. In his prison letters, though (recently 
     published in this country), Wei maintained that a peaceful 
     evolution toward democracy would be almost impossible for 
     China unless other nations pushed in that direction, 
     supporting those Chinese who share their values.
       ``One way to minimize losses and setbacks for all sides is 
     for countries with related interests to exert pressure and 
     help bring about internal progress and reform,'' Wei wrote in 
     1991. Six years later, Wei undoubtedly is still waiting.
       The writer is a member of the editorial page staff.

                          ____________________