[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 9, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6783-S6785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             EXTENSION OF NORMAL-TRADE-RELATIONS WITH CHINA

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to support a joint 
resolution disapproving the extension of normal-trade-relations status 
to China.
  This is the fourth time that I have joined with other Senators to 
support such a resolution because I believe that trade policy is an 
effective tool that the United States can and should use

[[Page S6784]]

with respect to the policies of the Chinese Government. I am pleased to 
join Senator Smith in supporting his resolution.
  On June 3, President Clinton announced his intention to extend the 
normal-trade-relations trading status to China. As I understand it, 
without actually affecting the practical application of tariff 
treatment, legislation last year replaced the term ``most-favored-
nation'' in seven specific statutes with the new phrase ``normal trade 
relations.'' Regardless of which phrase you use, I find this policy 
unacceptable. Although we have expected the President to make such a 
decision, I can only say that under the current circumstances I am once 
again disappointed in the President's decision. In fact, I have 
objected to the President's policy since 1994, when he first de-linked 
the issue of human rights from our trading policy. The argument made 
then was that trade privileges 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.
  Clearly events of the last few months have shown the fallacy of that 
assumption.
  I have yet to see persuasive evidence that closer economic ties alone 
are going to transform China's authoritarian system into a democracy. 
Unless we continue to press the case for improvement in China's human 
rights record, using the leverage of the Chinese Government's desires 
to expand its economy and increase trade with us, I do not see how U.S. 
policy can help conditions in China get much better. De-linking trade 
and human rights has resulted only in the continued despair of millions 
of Chinese people, and there is no evidence that NTR or MFN or whatever 
you want to call it, has significantly influenced Beijing to improve 
its human rights policies. Basic freedoms--of expression, of religion, 
of association--are routinely denied. The rule of law, at least as we 
understand it, does not exist for dissenters in China.
  Virtually every review of the behavior of China's Government 
demonstrates that not only has there been little improvement in the 
human rights situation in China, but in many cases, it has worsened--
particularly in the weeks preceding the tenth anniversary of the 
Tiananmen Square massacre. In fact, China has resumed its crackdown on 
dissidents who might have attempted to commemorate the anniversary of 
the Tiananmen Square massacre. Human rights groups have documented the 
detention of more than 50 dissidents since May 13, with a number still 
in custody. These have included two detained for helping to organize a 
petition calling on the government to overturn its verdict on Tianamen. 
The detainees include former student leaders at Tiananmen, a member of 
the fledgling Democracy Party, intellectuals, and journalists. Those 
not detained have reportedly been under constant surveillance amid 
calls by China's top prosecutor for a clampdown on ``all criminal 
activities that endanger state security,'' including such activities as 
signature gathering and peaceful protest.

  More generally, five years after the President's decision to de-link 
MFN from human rights, the State Department's most recent Human Rights 
Report on China still describes an abysmal situation. According to the 
report. ``The Government continued to commit widespread and well-
documented human rights abuses. * * * Abuses included instances of 
extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced 
confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado 
detention, and denial of due process.'' This list does not even touch 
on restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and religion or 
the continuing abusive family planning practices.
  In my view, 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. We have so few levers that we can use against China. 
And if China is accepted by the international community as a superpower 
without regard to the current conditions there, 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.
  This year--1999--is likely to be the most important year since 1989 
with respect to our relations with China. We face many thorny issues 
with China, including the accidental embassy bombing, faltering 
negotiations regarding accession to the World Trade Organizations and 
the recent release of the Cox report on Chinese espionage.
  But even with all that is going on, the United States and others in 
the international community yet again failed to pass a resolution 
regarding China at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 
Geneva earlier this spring, largely because China lobbied hard to 
prevent it. Despite China's efforts to avert a resolution, the United 
States must also shoulder some of the blame for the failure to achieve 
passage--our early equivocation on whether we would sponsor a 
resolution and our late start in garnering support for it no doubt also 
contributed to the lack of accomplishment in Geneva. While we would 
certainly prefer multilateral condemnation of China's human rights 
practices, the failure to achieve that at the UN Commission on Human 
Rights proves that it is even more important for the United States to 
use the levers that we do have to pressure China's leaders. We can not 
betray the sacrifices made by those who lost their lives in Tiananmen 
Square by tacitly condoning through our silence the continuing abuses.
  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 its 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. These 
examples 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.
  If moral outrage at blatant abuse of human rights is not reason 
enough for 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 substantial trade deficit with China. Over the past 
few years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has surged. It has risen 
from $6.2 billion in 1989 to nearly $57 billion in 1998. Political 
considerations aside, a deficit of that size represents a formidable 
obstacle to ``normal'' trading relations with China at any point in the 
near future. Other strictly commercial U.S. concerns have included 
China's failure to provide adequate protection of U.S. intellectual 
property rights, the broad and pervasive use of trade and investment 
barriers to restrict imports, illegal textile transshipments to the 
United States, the use of prison labor for the manufacture of products 
exported to the United States, as well as questionable economic and 
political policies toward Hong Kong.
  This does not present a picture of a nation with whom we should have 
normal trade relations. Or, if the Administration accepts these 
practices as ``normal'', perhaps we need to redefine what normal trade 
relations are. These are certainly not practices that I wish to accept 
as normal.
  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 exercise of NTR 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, for those who care about human rights, about freedom of religion, 
and about America's moral leadership in the world, I urge support for 
S.J. Res 27

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disapproving the President's decision to renew normal-trade-relations 
status for China.

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