[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 107 (Tuesday, July 27, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H6568]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H6568]]
                       EXTENSION OF NTR FOR CHINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the House on the issue of 
our policy towards the People's Republic of China.
  I believe the United States' policy toward China should be guided by 
three primary and pragmatic goals.
  First, we must safeguard American security against a potential 
adversary. Second, we should pursue economic trade relations that 
promote American economic interests. And finally, we should encourage 
policies that will allow individual liberty and the rule of law and, 
thus, respect for human rights to flourish in China.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, Congress voted to renew normal trade relations, 
or NTR, with China for another year. This renewal of NTR will advance 
all three of the above-mentioned China policy goals.
  On the national security front, NTR and the expanded trade 
opportunity that it brings in non-militarily sensitive goods and 
services will reduce the likelihood of military conflict between the 
United States and China.
  Countries with extensive trade relations are simply less likely to go 
to war with each other than countries without those ties. This is no 
surprise. With extensive trade comes extensive interests in maintaining 
peaceful relations and thus more trade.
  But make no mistake, NTR does not and should not imply trade in 
militarily sensitive technologies. Any technology with a direct 
military application should not be exported to China nor to any other 
country that is not a close ally of the United States.
  The Clinton administration's appalling lapses in safeguarding 
military technology must be rectified immediately. But denying American 
and Chinese citizens the opportunity to exchange non-military goods and 
services will not accomplish that.
  Instead, the U.S. should reinstate penalties on companies whose 
negligent sales compromise our security and rebuild a system of 
controls on the spread of potentially dangerous technologies.
  Renewing NTR with China will benefit our economy by providing 
American consumers access to low-cost goods and by expanding U.S. 
export opportunities. Revoking NTR would have subjected Chinese imports 
to dramatically higher tariffs, and that is another word for taxes. 
These taxes would not be paid by China but by American consumers. 
Revoking NTR would have subjected American consumers to up to $29 
billion in new taxes.
  A second economic benefit from extending NTR will be accelerated 
growth in high-paying, export-related jobs across America and 
particularly in my home State of Pennsylvania. Exports in industries 
such as chemical products, industrial machines, and computer 
components, where wages average 20 percent higher than the national 
average, are already fueling much of Pennsylvania's impressive economic 
growth.
  Renewing NTR is a prerequisite to China's ascending to the WTO, 
which, in turn, will dramatically accelerate further growth and 
opportunity in U.S. and Pennsylvania exports to China.
  But finally, Mr. Speaker, freedom works. By renewing NTR with China, 
we are helping to provide the opportunity for the Chinese people to 
liberate themselves from the dictatorship under which they currently 
live.
  China's communist leadership has embarked on what is, for them, a 
very dangerous course. Unlike most other communist dictatorships this 
century, from Stalin to Mao to North Korea's Kim Il Jong, Deng Xiaoping 
chose to open China to foreign investment, limited free enterprise, and 
engagement with the West. His bet was that he could enjoy the economic 
benefits of capitalism without losing the communist party's monopoly on 
political control.
  Well, in the long run, Mr. Speaker, if we continue to engage China, 
Deng's successors will lose that bet and the people of China will be 
the winners. And they will be the winners of freedom because freedom is 
ultimately indivisible.
  People who enjoy economic freedom will eventually demand political 
freedom. People who read American newspapers will eventually demand 
their own free press. The people who travel to the United States on 
business will see incomparable superiority of freedom and will 
eventually demand that liberty for their own country.
  Freedom once tasted is irresistible. Eventually the Chinese people 
will demand a free, open, and just Democratic society, just as their 
fellow countrymen enjoy on Taiwan. Only that kind of society will 
properly respect the Chinese people's human rights.
  These changes to Chinese society will not happen overnight, but 
having extended NTR will increase the pace at which they develop and, 
best of all, will be helping ourselves in the process.

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