[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 162 (Tuesday, November 16, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H12065]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CHINA'S POTENTIAL ENTRY INTO THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Wilson). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise with the sense that I am standing 
in front of a moving train. Today's media has almost already brought 
China into the World Trade Organization, and already declared that we 
are going to get enormous benefits from that entry, and from a decision 
that they presume will be made on this floor to grant China permanent 
most-favored-nation status, which some call normal trade relation 
status.
  Let us review where we are now on our trading relationship with 
China. We have the most lopsided trading arrangement in the history of 
a Nation's life. We have a situation where we export roughly $14 
billion and import close to $70 billion from China.
  China is shameless in maintaining and expanding that lopsided trading 
relationship. It maintains high tariffs on American goods, but what is 
worse than what China does officially in its published laws is what it 
does to restrict the access of American exports through hidden, through 
unofficial, through cozy relationships between the Communist party of 
China and those business enterprises that could be involved in 
importing American goods if they only chose to do so.
  We would think, then, that any change in this relationship would be a 
change for the better, since it is already the worst trading 
relationship I could identify. Yet, I have to question the idea of this 
House giving most-favored-nation status to China on a permanent basis.
  Madam Speaker, I cannot judge the deal in advance. It is yet to be 
presented to us formally, and just perhaps it will have some mechanisms 
in it that will allay my concerns. My chief concern is that what we 
would be doing in giving permanent most-favored-nation status to China 
is making permanent the current situation.
  That situation is one in which we are a country of laws, so any 
American businessperson can import goods from China, subject only to 
our published tariffs and restrictions and quotas. So many business 
people work here in the United States that they assume that if we could 
only change China's laws, that their business people would be free to 
bring in our goods. Nothing is all that clearcut.
  Imagine, if you will, some business enterprise in China seeking to 
import American goods receives a telephone call from a Communist party 
cadre telling them, don't buy American goods, buy them from France, buy 
them from Germany. The Communist party of China is angry at speeches 
made on the floor. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) took 
the floor again, you had better not buy American goods.
  An American businessman would simply laugh at some party official 
telling him or her what to buy and what to import, but a Communist 
Chinese citizen would ignore advice, oral advice, nonprovable advice, 
from the Communist Party of China only at their peril. China is not a 
country where the rule of law prevails. Accordingly, getting China to 
change its law accomplishes perhaps very little. We cannot assume that 
our trade deficit with China will go down.
  What we have now is an annual review of our trading relationship with 
China, so that if China were to move into Tibet and slaughter hundreds 
of thousands of people, we could react in a way that they would 
understand, by cutting off most-favored-nation status; that if China 
were to engage in massive nuclear proliferation, we could react. If 
China continues to widen its trade deficit and use unofficial means to 
exclude our exports, we could finally summon up the determination to 
react here on this Floor. If we give China most-favored-nation status 
on a permanent basis, then we will not be able to react in any 
meaningful way.
  Madam Speaker, I have come to this Floor three times, to vote in 
favor of giving China most-favored-nation status one more year, and a 
second year, and a third year, because I am not ready to use our most 
powerful weapon in the Chinese-U.S. trade relationship at this time. 
But it is a long way between saying we are not willing to use that 
weapon and that we want to engage in unilateral disarmament.

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