[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 116 (Thursday, September 9, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H8084]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CHINA SHOULD NO LONGER RELY ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO BLOCK AMERICAN 
                                PRODUCTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, 5 months ago, the American agriculture 
sector celebrated the signing of groundbreaking market access 
agreements with China. In April 1999, Chinese Premier Zhou Rongji 
signed three bilateral agreements with the United States designed to 
open agricultural markets. These agreements concluded decades of 
discussions on sanitary and phytosyntax trade barriers which had locked 
American farmers out of Chinese markets.
  Upon signature, China agreed to immediately begin implementing these 
agreements, permitting access to China's vast markets.
  The larger issue of Chinese WTO accession was not resolved in April, 
but the side agreements were considered a significant victory for 
American farmers.
  China has long relied on technical barriers to block American 
products. For more than 20 years, wheat from the Pacific Northwest has 
been banned because of unfounded concerns about TCK smut, a wheat 
fungus. The rest of the world recognizes that TCK poses no threat to 
human health and does not affect the quality of the product, yet China 
has maintained its ban for all of these years.
  Meat producers have largely been shut out of the market because China 
has only allowed imports from five approved U.S. plants and all citrus 
growers have been locked out because of concerns about Mediterranean 
fruit flies in certain regions.
  In signing the three agreements, China agreed to accept USDA 
certification for meat safety for U.S. exports of pork, beef and 
poultry; eliminate the current comprehensive ban on citrus fruits and 
eliminate restrictions on the import of Pacific Northwest wheat. All 
future SPS disputes will be settled scientifically.
  The potential consequences of the agreement were tremendous and 
touched most agriculture districts in the United States. But 
unfortunately, the disagreements remain only a distant unrealized 
potential. Three weeks ago, a member of my staff traveled to China to 
discuss implementation of these agreements. The Director General of 
American Affairs within the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic 
Corporation indicated that China did not intend, did not intend, to 
implement the agreements until discussions were concluded on WTO 
accession.
  Such a decision would be in direct contravention of the April 
agreement, which held that implementation would begin immediately. 
Agricultural producers should not be held hostage to WTO negotiations, 
and I expect China to uphold its bilateral commitments.
  We as a Congress, we as a country, we as people who care about our 
agricultural sector, should expect China to uphold its bilateral 
commitments. This should serve as a test case if Congress discusses 
permanent normal trade relations with China later this year as a part 
of a WTO agreement. If China delays action on agricultural agreements 
that have previously been signed, it raises serious questions about the 
sincerity of other commitments to implement market access agreements.
  The April draft WTO agreement would have resolved a wide range of 
other outstanding market access issues: trading rights, distribution, 
quotas, reliance on state trading companies and export subsidies. The 
U.S. Trade Representative did a great job in moving China toward a 
tariff based system, with extremely low tariff rates, but if China is 
unwilling to act on the Sanitary Phytosanitary Agreement, it seems 
likely that we may see continued reluctance on other aspects of any WTO 
agreement.
  So I am sending a letter to President Zemin and President Clinton 
urging immediate implementation of the bilateral agricultural 
agreements, and I urge any Member of this body who represents producers 
of wheat, pork, poultry, beef or citrus, to join in the signing of this 
letter. With low prices already hurting our farm leaders across the 
country, we should not stand by and let them continue to be locked out 
of one of the largest markets in the world.
  China should implement the side agreements; and it should do so 
immediately, and I would just say to my colleagues, this is an 
indication, I think, of disrespect for the agricultural sector in our 
country, which needs exports. We are fighting desperately to get our 
products into other countries; and now that we have reached this 
agreement, it seems to me that China should follow through on what they 
previously agreed to in April of this year.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) for his message, for 
watching this issue so closely. It is important to the agricultural 
sector; and I think, as the gentleman points out, it is a real test of 
whether we can depend upon the People's Republic of China to implement 
their promises on trade. So I thank the gentleman for his diligence on 
this issue.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) 
for his comments and his commitment to agriculture and his interest and 
his expertise in trade issues.

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