[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 16, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H3152-H3159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     SAY NO TO THE CHINA TRADE DEAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I am joined this evening by the 
distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), and I hope to be 
joined by others, to talk about the China trade deal.
  Mr. Speaker, to listen to the lobbyists for permanent MFN, most-
favored-nation trade status for China, to listen to them, China today 
is the last frontier of American business. People have been lusting 
over the Chinese market since Marco Polo. After all, it is where one-
fifth of the population on the face of the Earth lives, it is where the 
largest market in the universe is. So there has been this constant 
theme in western civilization of explorer, conqueror, and perhaps 
``plunder'' is too strong of a word, but economically plunder I do not 
think is.
  But the reality of all of this is that the Chinese are a very clever 
people, they are a very bright people, they are a very industrious 
people, and despite the history of the attempts to change their market 
to a western market, they have persisted over centuries in fighting 
that very thing.

                              {time}  2100

  We are told it is a market of more than 1 billion customers waiting 
to be sold, everything from American made SUVs to cheese-flavored dog 
food. Take one look behind all of this hype and one will discover a 
different China.
  Now, why the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and I and others are

[[Page H3153]]

here fighting this issue is because we believe, with all of our heart 
and our soul, that the issues and the effort that went into making 
America great was not by itself the free market. The free market 
unfettered, Darwinian in nature, will not by itself open up the 
opportunities for American workers and Americans in our society. It was 
only thus because people were willing 100 years ago, a century ago in 
our country, to fight for the things that they did not have.
  What did they not have? They did not have the right to come together 
to organize, to form collectively organizations and unions to bargain 
for their sweat, for their labor, for benefits, so they could have 
decent wages, health care, pensions, worker's comp, unemployment comp, 
weekends, holidays, name it.
  What we enjoy and take for granted today they did not have and it did 
not exist, and it happened because people were willing to march, 
protest, even die, go to jail for these fights. So people were willing 
to do that.
  What else were they willing to do? They were willing to expand our 
democratic process so that people of color, people of other genders, 
could participate.
  My grandmother came to this country, and one of the first things she 
engaged in was for the right of women to vote. She was a suffragette. 
It did not happen automatically. It happened because she and others 
were concerned enough that went to the streets, they demonstrated, they 
petitioned, they created a movement called the Progressive Movement of 
the United States of America that not only gave women the right to vote 
and created the atmosphere for people to come together collectively in 
unions to fight corporate power and to provide for their families, and, 
of course, at this very time in our Nation's history during the 
progressive movement at the turn of the century we had people taking on 
the big multinationals and the trusts, the banks, the railroads, and a 
whole body of law came out of that with respect to antitrust and 
consumer protection and all of these things that we enjoy today.
  Now, why do I preface all of my remarks around this? I do this 
because these things do not automatically happen because of a free 
market. They happen because people come together and they form 
coalitions and they fight for these things and they march and they 
protest and they sometimes are beaten and, as I said, sometimes they 
die for them.
  We did not have universal suffrage in the United States of America 
until 1965, and we have it today because of a gentleman who serves with 
us today by the name of John Lewis and others like him who had the 
courage and the guts to march in the streets, to protest, to fight for 
the things that they believe in, to get beaten, thrown in jail, to 
stand up for the rights of African Americans to vote, particularly in 
the South in this country, where they were denied with such vehemence 
and such brutality.
  These are struggles today that are going on in China, and the 
question we have to decide for ourselves, as Members of this 
institution, next week when we vote on this, is that who will we stand 
with? There is an old labor phrase, which side are you on? And there is 
a song, which side are you on? Which I cannot sing here because the 
last guy that came here and sang a song ended up getting beat, and I am 
not going to replicate that.
  It is a very poignant and basic thought. I mean, which side are you 
on? Are you on the side of Wei Jengsheng, who spent years and years in 
prison fighting for democracy? Are you on the side of Harry Wu, who 
fought for the same thing? Or are you on the side of the multinational 
corporations who see, as their goal, the pot of gold at the end of the 
rainbow, this market of a 1,200,000,000 people, and all these other 
values that we care so deeply about they kind of can be pushed to the 
side? We call them side agreements or side issues or sidelines 
concerns. That is what this debate is about today: Labor rights, human 
rights, environmental concerns, religious rights.
  If one lives in China today and they try to organize on any one of 
those four levels, religiously, politically, environmentally or trade 
union wise, they will end up in jail, in prison. There are tens of 
thousands of people who are exactly there today because they attempted 
to do that.
  Now, my friends on the other side of this issue, and I have dear 
friends who I respect and like and admire and it pains me deeply to be 
opposing them because we share, I think, some of the same values, we 
would be on the same sides, but they will tell me, they will come to me 
and they will argue and say, listen, if we only open up the market in 
China we will have a better chance to educate all of these individuals 
on these issues of environmental concerns and religious, human rights, 
labor concerns.
  My respective retort to them is this: If that indeed is the formula 
which they espouse, we have given China over the last part of this 
decade those very same opportunities through most favored trade status, 
and it has only gotten worse on all of these scores. On the 
environment, 5 of the 10 dirtiest cities in the world are in China. 
Eighty percent of the rivers in China do not have any fish in them 
because of the toxic pollutants. China produces more fluorocarbons, 
which eat away at our ozone layer, which causes not only the Chinese 
but the whole planet incredible environmental degradation and concern.
  Two million Chinese die every year of air and water pollution, and I 
could go on and on and on. So by opening up the market, we have not 
done a thing about the environmental issue. By opening up the market, 
they have not done a thing about the issue of religious freedom, where 
Catholic bishops languish in jail for 30 years, and it is not just 
Catholics. It is Muslims. It is Protestant pastors. It is a whole host 
of people who do not agree and who try to organize. It is the Falun 
Gong. If one tries to form a political organization to challenge the 
Communist Party and autocratic rule, they will end up in prison like 
they did when they challenged at Tiananmen Square. Of course, if one 
opposes the government on labor grounds, they will certainly end up in 
prison because they understand the labor issue is really kind of the 
key to all of this. If people can organize for their economic well-
being, they will strike back. So the labor leaders are the first ones 
to get punished and to be isolated.
  The China lobbyists tell us, do not talk to us about these issues 
because we can expand the economy, we can create jobs. Well, the 
problem is that we are moving to the lowest common denominator. China 
is a country where the workers average only $30 a month.
  This is a report that we are going to talk about. The gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is here. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is 
here with me. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) is here with 
me, from Oakland and Berkeley. We are going to talk about this issue. 
It is called Made in China, the issue of labor, and it is a report done 
by Charlie Kernaghan by the National Labor Committee and it talks about 
the sweatshops in China.

  If one reads this report, it is absolutely and abundantly clear what 
the problem is. The problem is that the national multicorporations go 
into China with the blessings of the Chinese Government. They set up 
these multinational, very sophisticated, very efficient, very new 
facilities and they pay people pennies, three pennies, and I am not 
going to steal the thunder of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) 
because I know he is going to talk about that, as will my friends, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown) will talk about it; three cents an hour. Some plants pay a 
little bit more, 22 cents an hour, but the upshot of it is they get 
slave wages. They are indentured servants to multinational 
corporations.
  Now, let me give an example. It has been estimated that Wal-Mart uses 
1,000 contractors in China. They will contract with somebody to set up 
a factory and they may employ 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 people. 
Researchers found that Wal-Mart was making Kathie Lee handbags at a 
factory where a thousand workers were being held under conditions of 
indentured servitude. Workers were forced to work 12, 14 hours a day, 
seven days a week, 30 out of 31 days in a month and their pay, as I 
said, three cents an hour. It is just not Wal-Mart.

[[Page H3154]]

  Nike has 50 contractors in China, employing more than 110,000 
workers. Young women making shoes for Nike in Hung Wah work from 7:30 
in the morning until 10:30 at night for an average of 22 cents an hour.
  In China, RCA TVs are made by women, some of them 14 years of age, 
girls, for a base wage of 25 cents an hour. If that is not bad enough, 
they are fined $10 pay by the company for mistakes they make on the 
assembly line.
  Keds are being made in China by 16-year-old girls who use their bare 
hands to apply the toxic glue.
  I can go on and on and on, but I think one gets the idea here. These 
people are paid slave wages. They are indentured servants. They live in 
dormitories, crowded rooms with barbed wire fences around the 
workplace. They work 30 out of 31 days, often times 15 hours a day, 
under the most brutal conditions and then they send these shoes here 
and they sell them for $100, $120. We all know that story.
  The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), I do not know if she is going 
to talk about it tonight, but Huffy Bike is another example of just 
where you just want to scream at why can they get away with this?
  Now, let me just conclude by saying this, and then I will yield to my 
colleagues to elaborate on this, because I think it is just very 
critically important.
  We have seen this play before. This is nothing new. We have all come 
to this floor. We had a debate in 1993 on NAFTA, the North American 
Free Trade Agreement. What is going on here is very quite similar to 
what happened back then, and what happened back then was this: They 
passed the North American Free Trade Agreement with the idea that, and 
they would say this to you, and actually Harley Shaiken has an op-ed 
piece today in the Los Angeles Times. He is a professor at Berkeley, 
lays this out very well; they made the same promises then as they are 
making today. They said labor wages would increase, environmental 
protection would increase, human rights would increase.
  Seven years later, our trade deficit with Mexico has exploded. The 
1.2 million workers in the maquiladora, which has doubled since we 
passed NAFTA, are making on an average 18 percent less in real wages 
than they made back in 1993; environmental protection, no such thing. 
Environmental degradation, we passed the NADBAG to take care of that, 
not provided any funds to speak of. So the toxics and the pollutants in 
the Rio Grande which seep into our country and cause hepatitis for 
people on our side of the border who live on the Rio Grande, as well as 
the Mexican population, has increased.

                              {time}  2115

  So none of this was built in. None of it is in force. As a result, we 
are suffering. Yes, Americans lost jobs. We lost hundreds of thousands 
of jobs as a result of NAFTA, good-paying manufacturing jobs. Of 
course, people got jobs in this country who had lost their jobs to 
Mexico. On the average, though, they are being paid about half of what 
they were paid before.
  What is happening with this China trade deal is the same thing. 
Corporations will use that leverage to say to our workers, listen, if 
you do not take a cut in wages, do not take a cut in benefits, do not 
freeze this and that, then we are out of here. We are going to China, 
because we can pay people 3 cents an hour or 22 cents an hour and ship 
the stuff back here and make a real handsome profit. So our workers are 
left high and dry. That is what this is about, an export platform for 
the Chinese.
  I just want to say to my friends and colleagues tonight that I have 
seen this before. We are kind of rushing into this thing again. We are 
going to have a very tight, close vote on this issue. I am glad that we 
are having a great debate on this, because it is something the country 
needs to focus in on.
  I was reading this book by Marianne Williamson, the title of which I 
forget. She talks about the principles in American democracy. The first 
principles she talks about are the right to freely associate, to freely 
express yourself, to form organizations; just to have a sense of 
freedom about who you are and what you say and how you go about your 
business. Those are kind of the principles that are at stake here.
  People say, well, it is for China, it is not for us. But it really is 
for us, because the longer we deny the Wei Jingshengs, the Harry Wus, 
the tens of thousands that are in prison today in China, to live the 
promise of my grandmother and my grandfather, who sat down in those 
strikes at the auto companies in the 1930s, the longer we deny them the 
promise to have that opportunity to strike a blow for liberty and 
justice and freedom of association and decent wages and good 
environmental protection, and the right to form political parties, the 
more that is going to play back on us in terms of our own standards, 
which will continually decrease.
  Our wage gaps will widen in this country. We will bifurcate who we 
are as a society, those who have and those who are struggling to have.
  We live, Mr. Speaker, in a globalized world. The rules of the game 
have changed. The question is, what will they be? I submit 
respectfully, Mr. Speaker, that those who are advocating for this 
treaty and that trade deal are advocating a policy that masquerades the 
past as the future. We cannot use the same formula that was used 100 
years ago in a globalized atmosphere.
  It is kind of like the Bobby Knight of trade deals: abuse, abuse, 
abuse; and okay, we will do it one more time, but do not abuse; abuse, 
abuse, abuse; okay, we will give you another chance, but do not abuse. 
It does not work. It sends a terrible message. It sends a terrible 
signal.
  I want to thank my colleagues for joining me tonight.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Toledo, Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for any 
comments she might make.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our leader here this evening 
for his superlative commitment to the cause of decency and values that 
we stand for as a free people.
  In joining the gentleman this evening, along with our very respected 
colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), I am really proud to join these 
men and women, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) tonight in 
expressing in more than a minute why this is really a vote about 
values, and that if permanent trade status is granted in this vote to 
China, we essentially are placing a stamp of approval on current 
conditions and saying that this is the system that we want to enlarge 
in the future.
  How can we want to enlarge a system that is based on utter 
exploitation of people? One cannot operate a company in China unless 
they have an agreement with the government, with one of the state-owned 
companies. There was an article in USA Today this week that said that 
the first 19,000 cars that were sold in China in a General Motors 
facility that was built there were sold to the owners of the State 
companies, they were not sold to the workers.
  So if that is the kind of system that we want to build for those that 
have the most, then, by golly, that is what the current system is 
producing. If we look at the workers in those plants, they are not 
earning enough to buy what they make.
  That is the reason that, under this system that people want to 
approve permanently, we are amassing greater and greater trade deficits 
with China every year, more of our dollars going in their coffers than 
their currency coming here.

  Mr. BONIOR. How much is it? I recall about 10 years ago we had about 
a $6 billion trade deficit with the Chinese, 6 or 7.
  Ms. KAPTUR. This year it will be somewhere between $70 and $100 
billion. That is the deficit. That is how many more of our dollars go 
into their coffers. We are the largest funder of the Chinese increasing 
defense spending and purchases of weaponry and advancement in their 
Navy, their Army, their Air Force, all of the technology that they are 
buying, some of it for making some saber-rattling moves towards Taiwan.
  The point is that the system that we are currently supporting, and 
some of the proponents of this want to lock in permanently, would give 
the very forces that have created this system

[[Page H3155]]

the kind of go-ahead that frankly I as a liberty-loving person cannot 
support.
  We hear the proponents say, well, but if you do this, you will bring 
freedom. How do we bring freedom when 110,000 Nike workers inside China 
who work for contract shops, 50 of them, that we could not even get 
into or drive by because they are hidden in country, those workers earn 
pennies an hour. If they earn over 35 cents an hour they are doing 
well. They work 7 days a week. They have mandatory overtime. If they do 
not do it, in other words, if they do not work from 7:30 in the morning 
until 11 at night, three shifts, they lose two day's wages. They are 
penalized if they do not do the mandatory overtime.
  Who can survive in that kind of system? To me, it would make sense 
that if the United States is taking all these goods, we take over one-
third of Chinese exports globally.
  Mr. BONIOR. Between 33 and 40 percent.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Yes. If we want to exact change in China, why not use our 
marketplace as the lever? Why go through this complicated process of 
giving them permanent trade status globally, knowing the kind of 
indentured servitude that is going on in that country? And I might add 
there also, particularly with women, because 80 percent of the people 
who are exploited in that country are women. There is forced abortion. 
Girls in that country do not have rights to education as women in 
societies that are free have.
  In many ways, I also feel like I am speaking out for them, because I 
know they cannot speak out in their own country. Yet, this is the kind 
of system that we are going to hold up and say, well, we as Americans, 
we endorse this system. That is still a Communist system.
  I find this place incredible, that we would have Members of Congress 
saying, believe them. Every trade agreement we have signed with them 
during the decade of the nineties, when we reduced, when they said that 
we will reduce tariffs to allow in goods, if that had happened, our 
trade deficit would be getting better. It is getting worse. They are 
earning more off of us. We are not able to get in there.
  Mr. BONIOR. Can we talk about that for just a second before we go on, 
because that is a really good point. Every trade agreement, as the 
gentlewoman has just said, in the nineties that we have agreed to with 
China has not been enforced. They have no enforcement compliance 
mechanism.
  The typical example, and I think the best example, one of the best 
examples, is intellectual property: software, tapes, you name it; 
digital products. Ninety-five percent of that stuff in China is 
pirated. We have an agreement that it is not supposed to be.
  In fact, some of the very ministries that put out the rules and 
regulations that say, you cannot pirate this stuff and sell it, are 
using pirated material. They just do not enforce or comply with any of 
their agreements. I could go sector by sector by sector. They have no 
mechanism to do that.
  So when our colleagues come to us and say, listen, this is going to 
open up my markets to my wheat, my grapefruits, my apples, or to this 
or that, the answer to that is, they will find a way to keep your stuff 
out.
  Ms. KAPTUR. May I just say something to the gentleman, and I will 
allow my other colleagues to speak here?
  I had a young woman before one of our committees this past week. We 
were discussing this. She is a Chinese American. Her roommate was shot. 
Her roommate was a demonstrator in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This young 
woman who is a physicist and now lives in my community in Ohio became 
politically active when she saw this happen to her friend who was a 
democracy demonstrator inside China.
  I asked her about this attitude of Americans, this kind of belief. 
She said, I cannot believe how naive the people here really are. Do you 
think because China promises something, she is going to do it? Do you, 
who live under a rule-of-law society, believe if someone signs a piece 
of paper, they are going to do it? Why are you so naive? Do you not 
understand what goes on there?

  I just wanted to add that to the record this evening, and thank the 
gentleman so very much for taking out this special order. I know my 
colleagues will also want to comment. We thank the American people for 
listening.
  Maybe it is important to say if people want to see this report on the 
website, if they have a website, this is Made in China by Charles 
Karnighan, and it is at www.NLCnet.org.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank my colleague for her comments, her passion and 
commitment and steadfastness on this issue. She has been, as always, 
fabulous.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown).
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Michigan, and thank him for his leadership for a decade on trade 
issues. His comments tonight about NAFTA just make me sad in the sense 
that not nearly enough people in this institution have learned the 
lessons of NAFTA, have learned that NAFTA was an investment agreement 
that paid no attention to worker rights, paid no attention to the 
environment, did nothing to raise living standards in Mexico.
  In fact, Mexican living standards plummeted after NAFTA. As a result, 
NAFTA caused even more hardship in Mexico, cost more jobs in the United 
States, and really locked in a system where Mexican workers do not make 
enough money that they can buy products from the United States.
  That is the tragedy of NAFTA, and the same tragedy on the same stage 
this Congress is playing out in the legislation to give permanent trade 
advantages, permanent most-favored-nation status trade advantages to 
the People's Republic of China.
  The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Bonior) both talked about the promises made by supporters 
of giving trade advantages, permanent trade advantages, to China; that 
if we only would engage with China, if we would only open our markets, 
that things would begin to change. They talk in terms of China being 
1.2 billion consumers, and we should get to those consumers before 
France or England or Germany does, because there is so much wealth to 
be created, so many jobs for Americans in selling to China.
  But what they do not say is, we have engaged with China with this 
failed policy for 10 years. We have engaged with China with something 
called the annual trade advantages to China. Why should we, when it is 
not working for 10 years, why should we make it permanent so we can 
have more of the same?
  More of the same means a trade deficit, back in 1988 and 1989 when 
President Reagan, President Bush, and now President Clinton have 
continued this policy; a trade deficit of $100 million in 1989 that has 
evolved into, as the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) said, $70 
billion plus in the year 1999 and probably $80 or $90 or a $100 billion 
trade deficit in the year 2000.
  We have gone backwards in other ways in these 10 years since we have 
engaged with China. We have seen more human rights violations. If we 
pick up something called the country reports, which is what our State 
Department, the booklet in which our State Department discusses human 
rights violations, what the Chinese have done in Tibet and other 
minorities in China, the language used to describe that by our 
government is similar to the language used, the language that the State 
Department wrote about Serbia and what it did in Kosovo.

                              {time}  2130

  We bombed Kosovo, yet we give trade advantages to the People's 
Republic of China. It makes no sense. In other issues, forced abortions 
in China where the government winks and sometimes encourages them. All 
of that has gotten worse in the last 10 years.
  The selling of nuclear technology to rogue States, countries that 
should not have nuclear technology, that has gotten worse in China. 
Slave labor has gotten worse in China. Child labor has gotten worse in 
China. All during this policy of engaging China.
  Mr. BONIOR. Religious persecution, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Religious persecution aimed at Falun Gong, 
Christians, Muslims, all kinds of religions.
  Mr. BONIOR. Buddhists.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Buddhists in China. But they cannot have the 
supporters of China for permanent trade

[[Page H3156]]

 advantages for China talk over and over that China has 1.2 billion 
consumers and we need access to them.
  What they do not tell us and what their real interest in China is it 
is a country of 1.2 billion workers, workers that, as the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) said, workers that will be used as an export 
platform in China where investors will come into China, pay these 
workers as this Made in China Study has illustrated, pay these workers 
as little as 3 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents an hour, make them 
work 12 hours a day, 6 days, sometimes 7 days a week, live in 
dormitories, 16 people to a room, charge them from their meager 15 
cents, 20 cents, 25 cents an hour wages, charge them for their 
dormitory space, charge them for their food, charge them for their 
clothing.
  So, in essence, these are slave labor workers. It is against the law 
in the United States of America for us to accept any products from 
another country made by slave labor. We have called, a group of us, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the gentlewoman 
from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) have 
called on the Department of Justice and on the Department of Treasury 
to enforce that law and to investigate to see if those goods are made 
by slave labor that we are accepting in this country.
  When Kathy Lee handbags made for Wal-Mart are made from workers paid 
3 cents an hour, where I come from, we call that slave labor. Those 
products should not be allowed in our country. We need to know more 
from our government about what is coming into the country made by slave 
labor before we vote on this China MFN bill next week.
  One other point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker, is that these 
companies say they want to democratize, these people lobbying us, the 
CEOs that walk the halls all over the place in the last couple of 
weeks, trying to get us to give trade advantage to China, they tell us, 
if we are in China that things will get more democratic. The fact is, 
in the last 5 years, in developing countries, investment from the 
United States, people in the United States investing in developing 
countries, the amount of money invested in developing countries has 
moved from democratic developing countries to authoritarian developing 
countries.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, this is a very good point, and I hope my 
colleagues pay attention to this, because I think the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Brown) has really developed this well. It is an amazing, it 
is not amazing, but it is disturbing. He has really pinpointed it well, 
and I look forward to hearing it.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in a nutshell, it means that, rather 
than investing in India, a democracy, American investors, large 
businesses are moving those investors to countries like China. Instead 
of Taiwan, a democracy, they are moving those investments to countries 
like Indonesia. Why? Because they can pay 3 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents an 
hour, because they do not have to worry about workers speaking out and 
talking back, because they do not have to worry about their employees 
trying to form a union and unite and be able to demand better wages. 
Because it is not a democracy in China, they do not have to worry about 
environmental laws. They do not have to worry about worker safety laws.
  All the values we hold dear in this country simply are nonexistent in 
a totalitarian-authoritarian country. That is why investors in the West 
like to invest in China, want this permanent most-favored-nation status 
for China knowing there will not be democracy, knowing there will not 
be unions, knowing they will not have to pay high wages, know they will 
not have to worry about environmental worker safety laws.
  That in itself is why we should not believe the promises of the CEOs 
walking the halls of this Congress, telling us, well, China will live 
up to its promise, we will live up to its promises, we will make this a 
more democratic system. Because history in the last 10 years and 
especially the last 5 years have shown us this is simply is not true.

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) 
for his comments tonight and his insights. I think he is absolutely on 
track on this.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) and 
then the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and then the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Sherman). But I encourage them to engage while we 
debate this.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Bonior) for yielding to me. I want to thank him for the leadership that 
he has shown to this country.
  People are really concerned about basic human values, about what is 
right, about what is wrong. It is a privilege to be here with the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) who is my partner from the Cleveland 
area, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman) and the other Members, including the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who participated in this important 
discussion about the vote which is coming up next week, which would 
grant China permanent most-favored-nations trading status.
  During the presentation of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), 
he had talked about a book that Marianne Williamson had written. The 
title of the book is Healing the Soul of America. I know he remembers 
because she is a constituent of the people of Michigan.
  Mr. BONIOR. Right.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, she lives in Michigan and is a fine 
writer. In the preface to that work, she writes, ``Would Jesus, if he 
were a citizen of the richest nation on earth, choose to feed the poor 
or fatten the rich?'' She goes on to write, ``All of us are better off 
when contemplation of holy principles is at the center of our lives. 
But it is in actually applying those principles that we forge the 
marriage between heaven and earth, while merely dwelling on principle 
falls short of the human effort needed to carry out God's will.''
  This book, the Healing of the Soul of America is about reclaiming our 
voices as spiritual citizens. Here in this August Chamber, above the 
Speaker, the words ``In God We Trust'' symbolize that we do believe in 
spiritual principles as well as trying to navigate this material world.
  In a way, our founders understood that, because, while they believed 
in the separation of church and State, as I do, they did not believe in 
an America that would be devoid of spiritual principles, the kind of 
principles that Marianne Williamson talks about in her book.
  When we reflect on the current situation in China, we can ask if the 
reports that we have in our hands, how they reconcile with spiritual 
principles. Is it spiritually appropriate for workers to be locked up 
in a work space working from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., 7 days a week, and in 
some cases earning 3 cents an hour. Is that spiritually appropriate?
  Because if we as Americans cannot see that clearly for what that 
represents, cannot see that when an American manufacturer moves jobs 
over to China, closes down factories in this country, and moves the 
work to China, closes down jobs in this country where workers are paid 
$15 an hour, $18 an hour, $20 an hour, and moves those factories to 
China so they can pay the workers 3 cents and hour, we have to ask is 
that spiritually appropriate.
  I think that every fair-minded American would have to agree that it 
is not spiritually right, it is not morally right. It is devoid of 
sensible economics. It is devoid of human values. This is the kind of 
judgment that we have to make.
  When we face the issue of whether or not China should be given 
permanent most-favored-nation status, which means that we would lose 
our opportunity to review the conduct of the Chinese Government when it 
comes to the workers.
  I think we have to avoid condemning the people of China in this 
debate, because they are our brothers and sisters. Those are our 
sisters working for 3 cents an hour to make Kathy Lee handbags for Wal-
Mart at the Qin Shi factory where 1,000 workers are held under 
companies of indentured servitude, working 12 to 14 hours a day, 7 days 
a week, 1 day off a month, while earning an average wage of three, 
count them, 1, 2, 3 cents an hour. Can they buy anything that the 
United States would ship over there, Mr. Speaker?

[[Page H3157]]

  Mr. BONIOR. Of course not, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I mean it is ridiculous. So what is this 
trade about? It is about creating a platform in China to wipe out 
American manufacturing jobs, so dump cheap goods on to the market here, 
while the major corporations literally make a killing at the expense of 
the human and worker rights of the people of China.
  Let me tell my colleagues where this is going. For those who say, 
well, that is just China. Let China handle its own problems. Let us 
send the business over there and create business, and let China lift up 
its values for the people there.
  Well, what will happen is this, as we create an environment in China 
where people are working under slave labor conditions, earning 3 cents 
an hour and, in some cases, netting less than that, owing their 
employer money at the end of a month's work, where they work 16 hours a 
day, 6 and 7 days a week, at the end of all that, what happens in 
America? Those same corporations go back to the American working men 
and women, and they tell American working men and women they are going 
to have to take a wage cut. We do not want them to have a union anymore 
to speak for them. They better not complain about their working 
conditions. Do not go with trying to negotiate with us. There is 
nothing to negotiate. We are moving to China.
  We are in a time right now where we as Americans have to once again 
say whether or not we believe in the basic principles upon which this 
country was founded: the principles of liberty, the principles of 
democracy, the principles of equality, the principles of everyone in 
this country counted. One cannot do that when one is reducing the value 
of a human being to 3 cents an hour, to 3 cents an hour.
  I think there was a time in history where one of the greatest persons 
ever to walk this earth was sold out for 30 pieces of silver. Are we 
going to sell out the people of China and the people of this country 
for three pieces of copper?
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich) for his comments. They are very poignant and very on target.
  Mr. Speaker, I have about 15 minutes left, and I want to share that 
with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and then also the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to thank the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) for really helping this House to focus on 
the basic question of what is right and what is wrong. So often we 
forget about those issues here.
  I want to thank him and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) for continuing 
to help educate this body with regard to really what the right thing to 
do is in this instance.
  As we entered the new century and the new millennium, relations among 
Nations in the Pacific rim and Africa are becoming very significant. 
Trade with China represents a substantial component of our country's 
international commerce. So as Congress has debated United States' 
trading policies toward China and Africa, I have carefully considered 
many fundamental issues.
  Now, I am a firm believer of self-determination for China. China has 
chosen communism. Whether we agree with it or not, that is their right. 
However, it is wrong to round up, to intimidate, and to arrest people, 
to place them in slave labor camps with no due process, regardless of 
whatever political or economic system one lives under.
  So the time is now for us to send a strong and unyielding message 
that the United States will not condone mass suffering and oppression. 
Trade must be open. Trade must be fair. Standards for human rights must 
be included in all trade agreements. Environmental protections must be 
in place. Women's rights should be advanced. Worker rights abroad 
everywhere should be protected. Of course religious freedom should be 
protected. American jobs should be protected and should not become a 
casualty of our trade policy.

                              {time}  2145

  And, of course, as we have heard over and over again, many argue that 
the best way to ensure China's respect for all of these issues is to 
admit China into the World Trade Organization and to grant it PNTR. 
Well, I disagree, as the gentleman disagrees, and believe an annual 
review actually provides for this.
  Mr. BONIOR. I think that is an important point. What we are asking is 
that we as a body, as elected people, the representatives of this 
country, have a chance to talk about this and vote on it so people can 
understand where we are on this important issue of principles that the 
gentlewoman has just enunciated once a year. That is what we are 
asking.
  We are going to continue to trade with China. They will continue to 
bring in 30 to 45 percent of their goods into our market. What we want 
to do, though, is keep the leverage and the pressure on making sure 
that these principles are eventually adhered to. We are not asking for 
all of these things at once. We know that takes time. It took us a long 
time. What we are asking for, as the gentlewoman from California has 
well stated, is some very basic things; the right to organize, 
collectively bargain, the right to deal with child labor and slave 
labor.
  Those are the four basic labor principles we are concerned about. We 
are not asking that people be paid $4 an hour or $5 an hour. We are 
asking that they have the right to collectively come together so they 
can bargain for their wages, so they can form political organizations, 
so they can worship freely. And then, through those mechanisms, they 
will be able to express themselves and develop the democratization 
process and democracy that they yearn for.
  Ms. LEE. That is right. Annual review at least provides for an 
effective mechanism for us to review China's compliance with all these 
standards. Also, it is the most viable assurance for the American 
worker.
  According to the Economic Policy Institute, over 870,000 jobs are 
projected to be lost within the next decade. What will happen to these 
workers here in our own country? If this bill passes, of course, the 
United States trade deficit will continue to escalate, leading to job 
losses in virtually almost every State.
  Mr. BONIOR. In the gentlewoman's State, as I recall, the figure over 
the next decade is 84,000, or something close to that.
  Ms. LEE. Absolutely. In my State of California we estimate 87,294 
jobs lost in the next century.
  Mr. BONIOR. And these are good jobs.
  Ms. LEE. These are good jobs. And this is very scary. What do we do? 
We have had many go-rounds of base closures and we are just now 
beginning to recover. California workers do not deserve this, and I 
hope people throughout the country understand what the magnitude of 
this job loss is to American workers.
  So we support free trade, I know the gentleman supports free trade, 
but it must be fair. Our policies also should at least put an end to 
slave labor in China rather than reward it. And, in essence, PNTR 
rewards slave labor.
  Now, we are not talking about cutting off our relationship with China 
at all. We want to make sure that our trade relations are such that the 
people of China and the people of the United States benefit from a fair 
and free trade policy.
  Very seldom do we have these defining moments in the Congress. This 
vote really does define who we are as a people and as a Nation. And as 
an African American, whose ancestors were brought here in chains and 
forced to help build this great country as slaves, I must oppose any 
measure that allows for the exploitation of people anywhere in the 
world, whether it is here in America, whether it is in Africa, the 
Caribbean, or in China.
  So I appreciate the gentleman's taking the leadership in this effort 
and really trying to help all of us in this Congress know that we must 
do the right thing, because this is our moment to be true to who we are 
as Americans.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank my colleague for her eloquence and her passion on

[[Page H3158]]

this issue and for bringing to light some of the real questions that 
confront us as we approach this vote.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Sherman).
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for 
yielding to me.
  I am pro trade, I am pro engagement. I am against isolation. I am 
against protectionism. And I oppose this trade deal. I would oppose 
this trade deal if it was only for the bad effects it is going to have 
on human rights in China. I would oppose this trade deal alone for the 
reasons that it is going to have a bad impact on the American economy. 
And it would be sufficient to vote against this deal just because of 
its bad impact on the strategic and political interests of the United 
States. Yet all three compel a vote against this deal.

  This deal leaves out a discussion of labor and environmental 
standards, but we are told that it is going to cause China and its 
system of communism and oppression to unravel. But for 10 years we have 
been giving China everything it wants in the way of trade and for 10 
years they have not unraveled but, instead, have beaten down harder on 
the voices of dissent. The Soviet Union unraveled with far less trade 
than what China enjoys with the United States today.
  We are told that the dissidents in China want this deal, but are they 
free to speak their minds, or do they face additional incarceration in 
the Chinese gulag should they dare to say anything but what they are 
told?
  We do not know what the real dissidents in China think, but we do 
know what the Central Committee of the Communist Party thinks. Yes, it 
is divided between the so-called reformers and the so-called hard-
liners. They are united on two things: First, they are absolutely 
dedicated to maintaining the Communist Party's monopoly on power. The 
reformers are not Democrats, if we are referring to the ``reformers'' 
in the Communist Party hierarchy. And they are united in wanting this 
deal because it empowers them, it solidifies their position, it 
emboldens them, and it delays for a long time the day in which their 
system will unravel and freedom will reign in China. China, I hope, 
will have freedom one day, but this deal will not make it closer.
  I think we should reject this deal because of American economic 
interests. This is not a struggle between the heart and the pocketbook. 
The pocketbook of America must say no. This is an issue of American 
human rights, the human right to be able to work in manufacturing and 
make $26 an hour instead of being shuffled off to a fast-food 
restaurant and told you are not an unemployment statistic and paid $6 
an hour.
  We have the most lopsided trading arrangement with China in the 
history of life on this planet; $83 billion of their exports to us, 13 
of our exports to them. Our exports to them are actually declining, a 
level of deficit that is six times the size of our exports.
  Now, I know we are told our economy is doing well, but the trade 
deficit is a cancer inside our economy, and the biggest and most 
important part of that is the growing trade deficit, the enormous trade 
deficit with China. This deal locks in that deficit.
  Their deficit should not exist. China is a developing country. It 
needs infrastructure. It needs the kind of factories and manufacturing 
control systems that we produce the best of. It needs machinery. It 
needs communication systems. Why are we not selling to China? It is not 
because of anything written in the documents and the laws of China. It 
is because the Chinese Communist Party has made a political decision; 
when in doubt, buy from those countries that are not criticizing you on 
Taiwan and on human rights. And so they run a trade deficit with the 
rest of the world, financing it with the huge trade surplus they run 
with us.
  We are told that this deal is going to change things because Chinese 
business people are going to buy from us. Almost anyone in China who 
would buy big American goods, almost all those enterprises are owned 
and controlled by the government. So if the government says that their 
enterprises are free to buy from us without quotas and tariffs, what 
does that mean if they make a political decision not to buy? The 
airline in China will buy as many Boeing planes as they politically 
decide is appropriate regardless of the published rates, tariffs and 
quotas.
  But what if there was a really politically independent businessperson 
in China who wanted to buy a huge amount of American goods and got a 
call from a commissar in the Communist Party saying, Mr. or Ms. Chun, 
or whatever the person's name happens to be, we know that you will 
think again. Yes, the American goods are great, they are high quality, 
they are just what you need. We have lowered the tariffs and we have 
lowered the quotas, and all the laws of China say you are free to buy. 
But Mr. or Ms. Businessperson, we know that you will decide that 
because the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Lee) make speeches that we do not like, that you will choose to buy 
goods from somewhere else. We know you will make the right decision, 
businessperson, because we know you are well educated. We hate to think 
that you need reeducation.

  We are not going to sell any more to China than the Communist Party 
of China wants us to. And a change in the law in a country where the 
law is not followed, where the government exercises power through 
terror and through oral conversations cannot be held accountable in WTO 
court.
  Now, we are told a couple of the last-minute sweeteners to this deal 
are going to make it better. We are told that someone is going to 
propose an anti-surge provision. There is no anti-surge provision in 
the anti-surge provision. What it says in the ``anti-surge provision'' 
is, if there is a surge of Chinese exports, we are allowed to spend our 
money, should there be any left in the appropriations process, to 
reeducate our workers. This is the first time I have heard that we need 
permission from Beijing to provide assistance to Americans who are 
displaced by trade.
  Second, we are told there are going to be Helsinki style reports on 
China every year. Every 6 months. Many people have quoted the reports. 
We have reports coming out of our ears. We could have more reports. We 
could commission several additional reports. Paper is not going to 
bring down this government. But if it was, we are free to do that 
without granting these agreements.
  The status quo is unacceptable. But that is not a reason to embrace 
this deal, because this deal simply solidifies the status quo in place. 
What it does is that it causes our companies to invest their capital in 
China knowing that they can then export back to the United States and 
there is no risk that those exports will ever be stopped. This deal is 
not going to cause China to buy goods manufactured here.
  Now, we are told, well, it does not matter because they just make 
tennis shoes and toys in China. We could not make those here in the 
United States. Well, that is not true. Often we do. But, second, if we 
had $100 million in capital, instead of making a low-tech factory in 
China, that could be used to make a high-tech factory in the United 
States, where sufficient technology and capital could allow American 
workers to compete. But even if we believe that it is impossible not to 
have these goods produced abroad, let us produce them abroad in a 
country where freedom exists and where the workers and the people in 
that country are free to buy American goods should they want to do so.
  Let me finally shift to the idea of our strategic interests, because 
here is where this agreement really lets America down. It takes away 
any sanction we might have should China deal with Taiwan in an 
inappropriate way or should China provide nuclear weapons to North 
Korea, or the technology for them, or, likewise, Iran. It takes away 
all the tools from the United States. We cannot do anything, except to 
declare war, which seems unlikely; or make speeches, which seems 
ineffective. We cannot do anything that costs the Chinese a penny, or a 
million dollars, should they take action adverse to our security 
interests.
  While it takes away our tools, it gives them tools. Because that same 
hoard of lobbyists that have been in every one of our offices telling 
us to vote for this deal now, they will be back next year and the year 
after that, and they will pull us aside and say,

[[Page H3159]]

stop talking about human rights in China. It is costing us business. It 
gives them tools.
  I would hope the gentleman from Michigan could be recognized for 
concluding remarks if he has them. I have concluded my remarks.
  Mr. BONIOR. Well, I thank my colleague, and I would just conclude, 
Mr. Speaker, with this one comment. I want to thank my friend, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Brown) for joining me tonight. I think we have made a compelling case 
on this issue, and we look forward to engaging the opposition on it as 
we go forward in the next week before the vote.
  I thank my colleagues for their time this evening.

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