[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 93 (Tuesday, July 18, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H6399-H6424]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DISAPPROVING EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT (NORMAL TRADE
RELATIONS TREATMENT) TO PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the previous order of the House,
I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 103) disapproving the
extension of the waiver authority contained in section 402(c) of the
Trade Act of 1974 with respect to the People's Republic of China, and
ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The text of H.J. Res. 103 is as follows:
H.J. Res. 103
Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, That
Congress does not approve the extension of the authority
contained in section 402(c) of the Trade Act of 1974
recommended by the President to Congress on June 2, 2000,
with respect to the People's Republic of China.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
Monday, July 17, 2000, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) and a
Member in support of the joint resolution each will control 1 hour.
Is there a Member in support of the joint resolution?
Mr. BROWN of OHIO. Mr. Speaker, I am in support of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) will
control 1 hour of time.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer).
General Leave
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.J.Res. 103.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, a little less than 2 months ago, the American people and
this House spoke out overwhelmingly in favor of expanded trade with
China. With broad bipartisan support, we passed a measure granting
American workers, farmers, and businesses unprecedented access to
China's once-forbidden markets.
Agriculture exports alone are expected to triple with this increased
trade, and tariffs on American-made goods will be slashed or eliminated
entirely in virtually every sector.
Mr. Speaker, as I have said many times before, this clearly is a win
for the U.S. and her people. It is particularly important that we stay
engaged with China so we can see the blessings of individual freedom,
democracy, and move forward toward a free enterprise society.
Mr. Speaker, given that, it is disappointing that we must vote on
this issue yet again. Nevertheless, support for continued normal trade
with China is stronger than it has ever been, and I urge Members to
keep this process on track by opposing H.J. Res. 103.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, here in Congress, we stand together in a commitment
toward the spread of democratic ideals and the improvement of human
rights. But as we have helped encourage the growth of democracy, many
American corporations promote practices that work against all that
Congress fosters throughout the world.
During the weeks approaching the vote for permanent NTR for the
People's Republic of China, corporate CEOs flocked to the Hill to lobby
for increased trade with China.
They talked about access to 1.2 billion consumers in China. What they
did not say was that their real interest is in 1.2 billion Chinese
workers, workers whom they pay wages on the level of slave labor.
These CEOs will tell us that increasing trade with China will allow
human rights to improve. They will tell us that democracy will flourish
with increased free trade. But as the CEOs speak, their companies
systematically violate the most fundamental of human and worker rights.
Companies such as Huffy and Nike and WalMart are contracting Chinese
sweatshops to export to the United States, often with the assistance of
repressive and corporate Chinese local government authorities.
Mr. Speaker, 1,800 Huffy bicycle workers in the U.S. lost their jobs
as Huffy in Ohio shut down its last three remaining plants in the U.S.
In July of 1988, Huffy fired 800 workers from its Celina, Ohio, plant
where workers earned $17 an hour.
Huffy now outsources all of its production to developing nations,
such as China, where laborers are forced to work up to 15 hours a day,
7 days a week and earn an average wage of 33 cents an hour. This is
less than 2 percent of what bicycle workers made in Ohio.
The Qin Shi Handbag in China makes Kathie Lee Gifford-line handbags
for WalMart. There are about a thousand workers at the factory where
they put in 14-hour shifts, 7 days a week, often 30 days a month. The
average wage at the factory is 3 cents an hour.
Many workers live in a factory dormitory where they are housed 16 to
a room. Their ID documents have been confiscated, and they are allowed
to
[[Page H6400]]
leave the factory for an hour and a half a day. For half of all factory
workers, rent for the dormitory exceeds their wages.
The workers earn, in fact, nothing at all. In fact, they owe the
company money. These people are indentured servants for WalMart or,
most of us would say, slave labor.
Developing democratic nations such as India are losing out to more
totalitarian nations such as China, where people are not free and the
workers do as they are told. Developing democratic nations such as
Taiwan lose out to authoritarian developing nations, such as Indonesia,
because the workforce is stable and docile and does as their told.
In the post-Cold War decade, the share of developing countries'
exports to the United States for democratic nations fell from 53
percent in 1989 to 35 percent last year.
Corporate America wants to do business with countries with docile
workforces that earn below-poverty wages and are not allowed to
organize to bargain collectively.
In manufacturing goods, developing democracies' share of developing
country exports fell 20 percentage points. Corporations are relocating
their manufacturing base from democratic developing nations to
authoritarian regimes where the workers do not talk back for fear of
being punished.
Western corporations want to invest in countries that have below-
poverty wages; that have poor environmental standards; that have no
worker benefits; that have no opportunities to bargain collectively. As
developing nations make progress toward democracy, as they increase
worker rights and create regulations to protect the environment, what
we do in the developed democratic world, the American business
community punishes those democratic developing countries by pulling
their trade and their investment in favor of totalitarian countries.
They like China a lot more than they like democratic India. Corporate
America likes Indonesia much more than they like Taiwan.
Decisions about the Chinese economy are made by three groups: the
Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and wealthy
Western investors. All of them control a significant amount of the
business that exports to the U.S. and Western investors.
Mr. Speaker, which one of these three, the People's Liberation Army,
the Chinese Communist Party, Western investors, which one of these
three want to empower workers? Does the Chinese Communist Party want
the Chinese people to enjoy increased human rights? I do not think so.
Does the People's Liberation Army want to close the slave labor camps?
I do not think so. Do Western investors want Chinese workers to bargain
collectively to get a little bigger piece of the pie? I do not think
so.
None of these groups, Mr. Speaker, none of these groups, the People's
Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party, and Western investors,
none of these groups have any interests in changing the current
situation in China. If they did, they would choose democratic India and
democratic Taiwan.
None of these groups have any interest in changing the current
situation in China. All three, Western investors, the Communist Party
of China, the People's Liberation Army, all three profit too much from
the status quo to want to see human rights and labor rights improve in
China.
Congress should not tolerate the working conditions that exist in
Chinese factories. Congress should care about how American corporations
are behaving outside of our borders.
I urge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to reject MFN and vote for the
Rohrabacher resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the Chair announces that
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) will be managing the time for
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer).
There was no objection.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 minutes of my time, for purposes
of control, to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), my
distinguished colleague.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Levin) will control 30 minutes of the time of the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane).
There was no objection.
Mr. BROWN of OHIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 30
minutes of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher)
and that he may then yield time as he sees fit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Rohrabacher) will control 30 minutes of the time for
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).
There was no objection.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, we had a very thorough and informed
debate in the House just a few months ago on these very issues. The
spotlight is now on the Senate. There is a clear majority there for
passage of permanent NTR, and I express the hope of many of us that
there can be full debate on the Senate side and action there
expeditiously, which I think should mean within the next few weeks.
I want to dwell on the major challenges ahead, because clearly the
U.S.-China economic relationships are at the beginning of a new phase;
they are far from their final form. So I believe there is a need to
focus on these challenges, and we cannot simply put our economic
relationships and our broader relationships with China on automatic
pilot.
As we know, there were major provisions in the legislation that
passed the House that attempt to address these very critical
challenges, and we need to focus on their effective implementation. The
legislation set up a high-level executive congressional commission to
be a continuing watchdog and a creative force in the area of human
rights, including worker rights.
We need to be sure during this session that that legislation is
adequately funded. We need to be sure that the appointees to this vital
high-level commission have the interest and the determination to make
that commission work, as the Helsinki Commission has worked, and, if I
might express the hope, even more so.
{time} 1315
We need to be sure that this commission gets off to a strong start. I
hope whatever the point of view may be in terms of PNTR that all of us
will join together on both sides of the aisle and within each caucus
and conference to make sure that happens.
The legislation also calls for strong monitoring and enforcement of
Chinese trade-related commitments and, as the chairman of the committee
indicated, there are numerous, indeed essentially innumerable
commitments. There also in the legislation is a strong anti-surge
mechanism to make sure that there is a safeguard against major loss of
American jobs in any specific sector. We need to be sure that the
requests for adequate funding that have come on behalf of the Commerce
Department and USTR to carry out these critical monitoring enforcement
duties are fully funded in the appropriation processes.
Those processes are far from complete when it comes to these aspects.
We also need to be sure that the ongoing discussions in Geneva, in
the working group on China, that in these discussions in Geneva the
administration continues to press for a regular annual review within
the WTO of these commitments by China.
I see that we have been joined by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr.
Bereuter), with whom I have had the chance to work on these very
provisions, as well as the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking
member of the full committee and the chairman of the full committee. I
think all of us join in indicating the importance of the implementation
process of these provisions.
In a word, we need now to focus on the future. We are far closer to
the beginning than to the end of the challenges that we face in our
economic relationships with China. China, as it grows, is already
1,200,000,000 people and is projected to become the second largest
national economy within 20 years. We need to focus on these challenges
as China emerges from 50 years as a state-controlled economy and with
state abuses of human rights and individual freedoms. So today I urge
my colleagues to vote no on this resolution and to join together to
continue on
[[Page H6401]]
this important and difficult road of confronting the challenges ahead.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Quinn). The Chair would remind Members
that it is not in order to urge certain Senate action, as recorded on
page 181 of the House Rules Manual.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I have introduced H.J. Res. 103 to disapprove the
President's annual certification of the so-called normal trade
relations with China, and I have no allusions that this bill will
overturn the House vote on permanent normal trade relations. But I have
introduced this bill because we need to pay attention as to what has
happened in China and throughout the world since we voted for permanent
normal trade relations with China.
I believe the American public has the right to hear about events and
the events in China that followed the mega million dollar propaganda
campaign that was waged by U.S. corporations in order to acquire the
approval of Congress for PNTR.
PNTR, let us remember, is a taxpayer subsidy for corporations;
includes, and that is the most important provision for these companies,
a taxpayer subsidy in the form of loan guarantees and actual interest
guarantees and loan guarantees to companies that are closing their
factories in the United States and opening them in China.
What we are talking about is American workers being taxed in order to
support the transfer of thousands of jobs to low-paying labor mills in
China. That is what PNTR was all about, and it was sold to us as
something totally different. It told to us that there would be many
benefits of PNTR.
Well, the day after the PNTR vote, the media began reporting what the
real story behind the corporate lobbying campaign was all about, even
though during the debate for PNTR we heard that it was all about
selling American products which, of course, is not the case. But after
the vote, the truth began to emerge. A May 25 Wall Street Journal
article put it very bluntly. Quote, ``even before the first vote was
cast by Congress and while the debate in Washington focused on U.S.
exports, the multinationals had something very different in mind.''
Quote, ``this is about investment in China, not about exports,'' said
an economist for a major U.S. financial firm.
So I am including several articles for the Record, Mr. Speaker.
[From the Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2000]
Opening Doors: Congress's Vote Primes U.S. Firms to Boost Investments
in China
debate focused on exports, but for many companies, going local is the
goal: ``Looking for predictability''
(By Helene Cooper and Ian Johnson)
The China investment rush is on.
Even before the first vote was cast yesterday in Congress's
decision to permanently normalize U.S. trade with China,
Corporate America was making plans to revolutionize the way
it does business on the mainland. And while the debate in
Washington focused mainly on the probable lift for U.S.
exports to China, many U.S. multinationals have something
different in mind.
``This deal is about investment, not exports,'' says Joseph
Quinlan, an economist with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co.,
``U.S. foreign investment is about to overtake U.S. exports
as the primary means by which U.S. companies deliver goods to
China.''
Michael T. Byrnes, chief representative of Rockwell
International Corp.'s China division, seconds that: ``In
China, that's the direction we're going.''
Yesterday, by a vote of 237-197, the U.S. House of
Representatives gave its approval for the world's largest
communist nation to become a card-carrying member of the
ultimate capitalist club, the World Trade Organization.
The hotly contested House vote was portrayed by proponents
as a historical watershed. It was ``the most important vote
we [have] cast in our congressional careers,'' said Rep. Bill
Archer, House Ways and Means chairman.
The vote perfectly punctuates the end of the 20th-century
struggle between communism and capitalism for dominance of
the world economy. Capitalism won. With China's entry into
the WTO, free markets and free trade have emerged as the
unchallenged global standard for business.
The vote also cements a legacy for Bill Clinton. He will
now be viewed by history as a president who firmly opposed
protectionist forces within his own party, winning approval
for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, the WTO
in 1994 and, finally, permanent normalization of trade with
China. After yesterday's vote, Mr. Clinton said: ``This is a
good day for America. Ten years from now we'll look back on
this day and be glad we did this.''
For business, which spent millions of dollars on
advertising and lobbied vigorously for this outcome, the
consequences are more practical, but no less far-reaching. In
the tense weeks leading up to last night's vote, business
lobbyists emphasized the beneficial effect the agreement
would have on U.S. exports to China. They played down its
likely impact on investment, leery of sounding supportive of
labor union arguments that the deal would prompt companies to
move U.S. production to China.
But many businessmen concede that investment in china is
the prize. Consider Mr. Byrnes's company, Rockwell, a
Milwaukee-based maker of automation and aviation equipment.
In 1987, Rockwell invested in a small cable factory in the
southern city of Xiamen that produces about $3 million worth
of equipment a year for the China market.
Like many foreign companies in the 1980s, Rockwell was
allowed to invest only if it entered a joint venture, a messy
arrangement that required Rockwell to cooperate with four
local partners, all of them state-owned. The experience so
frustrated Rockwell that it never invested in another factory
in China, preferring instead to export as much as $200
million worth of products each year to China from the U.S.
and other countries.
Now, Rockwell says that's likely to change. The WTO
agreement, Rockwell hopes, will encourage China to abide by
international rules, such as publishing regulatory changes
and making transparent the workings of its
bureaucracy. ``We're looking for predictability,
rehability,'' Mr. Byrnes says. With that, Rockwell expects
to set up more factories. ``My advice back to the
headquarters,'' Mr. Byrnes says, ``is WTO makes things
more predictable for investing.''
Technically, yesterday's vote in the House has no direct
bearing on China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
That was all but assured last week when the European Union
completed negotiation of a broad trade agreement with China,
following a similar agreement with the U.S. last year. But
under WTO rules, China still couldn't enter the group until
Congress provided permanent normal trading relations with
China--rescinding the law under which China's trade status
came up for a vote each year.
If the measure hadn't passed, China would have had the
right to deny U.S. companies the access to its markets that
it is extending to other WTO members.
Now that that hurdle is cleared, the agreements to let
China into the WTO will probably boost exports to the country
by lowering its tariffs on a host of products. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture estimates that American farm
exports to China will rise by $2 billion within five years.
U.S. and foreign moviemakers also expect to do more business
in China, where their combined annual quota will rise to 40
releases from 10.
Equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc., exports about $200
million of tractors and other construction equipment to China
a year, a figure that has roughly tripled in the past few
years as China has pushed an ambitious infrastructure
program, says Dick Kahler, president of Caterpillar China Co.
WTO entry will cut tariffs to 10% from 20%, making
Caterpillar's products even more affordable to Chinese
customers. ``We don't see why we can't continue to see that
kind of growth,'' Mr. Kahler says.
Indeed, the fear among many in China is that local
businesses will be swamped by foreign goods. A play that
premiered in Beijing yesterday titled ``Made in China'' tells
the story of a beleaguered Chinese cosmetics maker fighting a
flood of foreign imports. ``Chinese factory managers are
terrified about the low tariffs,'' says the play's director,
Wang Shaoying.
Still, if the strategic plans of American companies are
anything to go by, U.S. exports aren't the big trade story
here. ``U.S. exports will increase, over time,'' says Greg
Mastel, director of global economic policy at the New America
Foundation, a Washington think tank. ``But not at the rate of
investment, and the corporate community has been quiet
about that. They've been able to avoid telling that
story.''
That story reflects a simple business fundamental:
Companies need to be closer to their customers. And China has
1.2 billion potential customers.
Direct foreign investment in China already has burgeoned.
It totaled $45 billion in 1998, according to a January study
by A.T. Kearney Inc., the Chicago management consulting firm.
Last year, after the onset of the Asian financial crisis and
a slowdown in the Chinese economy, the total shrank to $40
billion. Now, many economists expect investment in China will
resume rising, by as much as 15% to 20% a year.
With WTO membership, China agrees to allow foreign-owned
dealership and distribution services, a big boost for auto
makers and heavy-equipment manufacturers. U.S. banks, too,
will get a crack at a market totaling 1.1 trillion yuan
($132.88 billion), in terms of loans outstanding. U.S.
lenders ultimately will have unlimited access for the first
time to manage the deposits of Chinese citizens and to lend
to individuals and corporations. And foreign asset managers
will be allowed to establish joint-venture fund-management
firms.
[[Page H6402]]
Consider Motorola Inc.'s China plans. Motorola has just
developed a $600 combination computer and wireless phone,
called Accompli, which it makes entirely in China. ``It has
really clever Chinese features, all done based on market
research in China,'' says Motorola Chairman Chris Galvin.
Already, Motorola has China sales of about $3 billion each
year.
When it officially joins the WTO later this year, China
will allow foreign companies 49% ownership of
telecommunications carriers, and 50% two years later--
compared with nothing today. Mr. Galvin believes that will be
a huge opportunity for Motorola as its Chinese customer base
expands. Motorola also plans to invest in Chinese Internet
ventures, he says.
In Shanghai, General Motors Corp.'s Buick Regal is in the
second year of production at a factory that cost more than $1
billion to build. About 60% of the car is made locally, says
Larry Zahner, president of GM China Group. Much of the rest,
about $250 million a year, is imported from North America,
mostly from Michigan. But even with China in the WTO--which
should eliminate Chinese rules requiring local content--the
Detroit company expects to raise the local content of its
cars manufactured in Shanghai to 80% or 90%, Mr. Zahner says.
Eastman Kodak Co. is well into plans to invest $1 billion
on manufacturing plants in China. Kodak expects China will
leapfrog the U.S. as Kodak's biggest market by 2025. To that
end, Kodak has been boosting its manufacturing capacity
there, as well as encouraging smaller investors to open Kodak
Express processing stores.
European and Japanese multinationals have been drawing up
their plans as well. Germany's Volkswagen AG and Japan's
Toyota Motor Corp. have big Chinese investment plans on the
drawing board. In an era when new models are rolled out
with increasing frequency, factories can't wait months for
parts to be shipped around the world. As a rule of thumb,
auto companies want their suppliers to locate within 250
miles of the final assembly plant.
Many of the biggest trade concessions China made in return
for its acceptance into the WTO are in banking, insurance and
other services. New York Life Insurance Co. is one insurer
already planning to set up a joint-venture with a Chinese
partner, though it hasn't made public the amount it wants to
invest. Just after the vote yesterday, New York Life
International's chief executive, Gary Benanav, was preparing
to hop on a flight to China. ``As quickly as possible, we are
going to apply for a license to enter the life-insurance
market,'' he said.
American International Group already has pumped hundreds of
millions of dollars into China, mostly to set up offices,
train Chinese insurance agents and to ingratiate itself with
local regulators by plowing collected premiums back into
Chinese infrastructure projects. It also is expected to be
among the first to set up a fund-management joint venture.
Even agriculture companies are getting in on the act.
Poultry giant Perdue Farms Inc. is ratcheting up its
investment in China with a joint venture for a processing
plant and hatchery near Shanghai.
Beijing is well aware that entry into the WTO will bring a
rush of foreign investment. Indeed, that's a big reason why,
after years of dragging its feet, China has in the past two
years aggressively pursued WTO entry--to bring in the money
needed to keep the economy growing and modernizing.
____
China Warns ``No More Concessions'' to Get Into WTO
Geneva (Reuters)--A senior Chinese official declared Friday
that his country could make no more concessions on opening up
markets for goods and services in its bid to join the World
Trade Organization (WTO).
China's lead WTO negotiator, vice-minister for foreign
trade Long Yongtu, issued his warning at a formal meeting of
diplomats from most of the body's 137 member states who are
working to wrap up the terms of Beijing's entry.
Some countries, said Long, ``have raised some unreasonable
requests, either requiring China to undertake obligations
exceeding the WTO rules, or insisting that China cannot enjoy
its rights under the rules . . .
``We will never accept further requests that China should
undertake obligations exceeding those for ordinary WTO
members, and nor will we allow ourselves to have the rights
that we should have to be impaired or even taken away,'' he
added.
Long's trenchant statement came as Beijing's 14-year effort
to become a formal part of the global trading community
appeared moving into its final lap.
Diplomats said his remarks were largely aimed at developing
countries--including India and several Latin American
states--who are seeking to come fully under the umbrella of
china's bilateral accords with the United States and the
European Union.
Many of these countries are bidding to win the same right
to impose so-called safeguard restrictions as were written
into the U.S.-China pact on surges of Chinese imports of
textile goods that might threaten the survival domestic
producers.
SUBSIDIES ALSO AN ISSUE
But diplomats said there were other areas--like how
subsidies were assessed and balance-of-payments measures
treated--where the language of both U.S. and EU accords with
China was drafted to be a specific to bilateral trading
relations. Many emerging economies want the terms of these
accords to be fully ``multilateralized'''--or written into
the final documents setting out the terms of china's entry
and therefore applicable to all WTO members.
Speaking at a news conference, Long said his government was
``determined and prepared'' to honor all its agreements on
WTO entry, but could not accept overall terms that went
beyond the current rules of the organization.
Envoys said the row, which was unlikely to become a major
obstacle to Chinese entry by the end of this year, was a
reflection of the negotiations were now in the end-game.
``Many countries are upping the ante to try to win
something extra at the last moment,'' said one negotiator.
``Everyone realizes that Chinese entry will bring momentous
changes for the organization.''
ENTRY TALKS SEEN POSITIVE
Despite the controversy, both Long and Pierre-Louis Girard,
Swiss chairman of the WTO Working Party on Chinese accession,
said the atmosphere during the past week of formal and
informal talks had been positive.
``Everybody seems pretty serious about getting this done so
China can come in by the end of the year,'' a senior U.S.
official who attended the session told reporters.
In a sign of advance, China Friday wrapped up a bilateral
accord with Costa Rica--which had been seeking wider access
for its tropical fruit and coffee exports--and appeared close
to a final accord with Switzerland. Other agreements remain
to be completed with Mexico, Guatemala and ?
Diplomats said the Working party would meet with Long and
his team again in Geneva in the last two weeks of July and
that the aim then would be to complete the major admission
documents--a Protocol of Accession and a Working Party
Report.
____
[From the Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2000]
China Unicom Scraps Plan Linked to Qualcomm Deal
(By Matt Forney)
Beijing--China's No. 2 phone company has confirmed it won't
use a mobile-phone technology designed by Qualcomm Corp., of
the U.S. for at least three years--a decision that could
reverberate from Silicon Valley to Washington.
China's promise to open its markets to Qualcomm's current
generation of cell-phone technology was key to it earning
U.S. support to join the World Trade Organization, the
Geneva-based group that sets global trade rules.
Last year, Premier Zhu Rongji personally assured U.S.
Commerce Secretary William Daley that China would open its
markets to San Diego-based Qualcomm's code-division multiple
access, or CDMA, technology, according to people in the room
at the time, a decision that was supposed to result in
millions of Chinese subscribers using Qualcomm technology by
the end of this year.
But after China's entry into WTO was stalled by the U.S.
last year--and the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia was bombed--
China's enthusiasm for Qualcomm's technology likewise faded.
As China's WTO bid picked up steam last autumn and was
endorsed by the U.S. last November, Qualcomm's fortunes in
China rose, culminating in it signing a ``framework''
agreement with Unicom in February. But Qualcomm then ran into
problems with China over the amount of its technology that
would be produced locally.
The delays meant Qualcomm was starting to make little
economic sense to China--analysts said it would be wasteful
for China to pour billions into a technology that would
become dated in a few years when companies start rolling out
next-generation mobile-phone technology.
``The company has planned to provide CDMA services this
summer,'' said a representative for China United
Telecommunications Corp., or Unicom, who was quoted in the
state-run Xinhua news agency Sunday. Unicom canceled the
project because ``the timing of constructing a narrow-band
CDMA system has become unfavorable,'' he said.
``Narrow band'' refers to Qualcomm's currently available
CDMA technology. The spokesman said he expected Unicom to use
Qualcomm's next-generation, or ``wide-band,'' CDMA technology
in around 2003. But the spokesman also said that the February
agreement, in which Unicom agreed to license some form of
CDMA equipment from Qualcomm, ``could be canceled.''
Over the past week, Unicom sent mixed messages on whether
it would use Qualcomm's technology, causing a sell-off of the
company's stock, which had risen more than 20-fold last year
but has sunk 60% from its January high.
____
China Wary of its Private Sector
(By Charles Hutzler)
Beijing--President Jiang Zemin, worried about the Communist
Party's slipping hold on a fast-changing China, has ordered
the party to set up cells in the country's thriving private
sector, state media reported yesterday.
Mr. Jiang's speech to party officials Sunday underscored
the leadership's growing anxieties about the challenges
global economic change is bringing to its monopoly rule. As
more Chinese find work outside the government and decrepit
state industries, free markets, not fiats from Beijing, hold
sway.
[[Page H6403]]
Mr. Jiang, who heads the 61 million-member Communist Party,
said the organization must improve its leadership and
``strengthen its combat capabilities . . . so that the party
can direct China's modernization drive and secure the
country's power in the midst of fierce international
competition.''
He noted the private sector's importance in China's
economy. Private companies need party organizations ``to
guarantee the healthy development of the sector,'' Mr. Jiang
said in remarks carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Those cells ``should work hard to unite and educate
entrepreneurs to advocate various policies of the party, run
businesses according to law and protect the employees'
interests,'' Mr. Jiang said.
It was not clear how the party would put Mr. Jiang's order
into effect. But if realized, the plan could bring a marked
change to the freewheeling private sector. State firms have
always had party representatives, and despite 20 years of
free-market reforms, they often wield more power than
enterprise managers.
Businesses outside state control now account for 60 percent
of China's $990 billion economy. That portion is projected to
grow after China's expected entry into the World Trade
Organization later this year opens many long-protected
Chinese markets.
Foreign businesses are likely to increase investment in
China.
____
China Pop De-Fizzed
Why things go better for Coke without Ah-mei on its billboards.
(By Charles Lane)
In a time of tension between China and Taiwan, Zhang Huimei
brought people together. The diminutive Taiwanese pop singer,
who goes by the stage name Ah-mei, sells millions of CD's on
both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Last year 45,000 screaming
fans caught her Madonna-like act in a government authorized
Beijing concert.
American business, too, recognized her star power. Coca-
Cola, seeking to harness her popularity to sell its products
in the mainland Chinese market, spent millions on TV, radio
and billboard ads for Sprite, featuring Ah-mei.
But Ah-mei's career in the People's Republic came to a
screeching halt when she agreed to sing Taiwan's national
anthem at the May 20 inauguration of Taiwan's newly elected
president, Chen Shui-bian, whom Beijing considers excessively
interested in independence for the island nation. Her videos
and music were immediately banned on state-controlled media
in China.
And Chinese authorities notified Coke that its Ah-mei ads
would also henceforth be verboten. Beijing tried to portray
this as a response to public outrage at Ah-mei's performance
in Taipei. But there's been public outrage over the massacre
at Tienanmen Square, and the Communist government hasn't
deferred to that. The banning of Ah-mei was clearly linked to
Beijing's broader attempt to enforce its increasingly hard
line against Taiwan.
This blatant censorship was a frontal attack on Coca-Cola's
freedom of expression, and Ah-mei's, and that of her fans,
too. It was also an attack on Coke's bottom line. After the
first six weeks of Ah-mei Sprite TV ads in 1999, Coke claimed
that consumer awareness of the brand had doubled, and sales
had grown substantially.
So how did this most American of multinationals fight back?
A lawsuit? A plea for help from the U.S. government?
Actually, Coke rolled over, without a peep of protest. The
company was ``unhappy'' about the ban, says Robert Baskin,
the company's director of media relations, but ``as a local
business, we will respect the authority of local regulators
and we will abide by their decisions.''
Trade and investment with the People's Republic has
sometimes been sold as a kind of universal political solvent:
The more U.S. firms get involved in the Chinese economy, the
theory goes, the better the chances that American political
values will, over time, penetrate the Communist-run society
as well. We heard a lot of this during the recent debate over
permanent normal trading status for China. The case of Coke's
Ah-mei ads provides a rough test of how well this argument
stands up in the here and now.
To be sure, you could argue that the fact that China felt
constrained to justify its ban on the big U.S. firm's ads
represents a kind of progress. Coke's presence in China is,
of course, not hurting the Chinese people. Insofar as it
provides jobs, income and tasty carbonated beverages, it
makes life better and, in economic terms, freer. Coke runs a
scholarship program that supports some 700 low-income Chinese
university students.
Nor is Coke the first American firm to alter its
advertising in China for political reasons. Two years ago
Apple Computer actually censored itself, voluntarily removing
images of the Dalai Lama--living symbol of Tibetan resistance
to Chinese domination--from its ``Think Different'' ads in
Hong Kong. A spokesperson for the company said at the time
that ``where there are political sensitivities, we did not
want to offend anyone''--i.e., Apple didn't want to incur the
wrath of Beijing by even seeming to urge Chinese citizens to
think different about Tibet. (Coke will continue to use its
Ah-mei ads in Hong Kong and Taiwan.)
The point is that in the struggle over what values
ultimately reign in China, the Chinese state is hardly
helpless against the impact of American commerce. When
pushed, firms such as Coke will be flexible about freedom of
speech--and even, it seems, sacrifice some short-term
profits--if they deem it necessary to preserve the long-term
market access conferred by a prickly authoritarian
government. And who can blame them? Coke and other
multinationals are fundamentally economic, not political,
institutions. They have to answer to their shareholders.
The Chinese regime's priorities are equally clear: it wants
economic development; it wants foreign investment; it wants
Sprite; it even tolerates entertainment imported from the
renegade province across the Taiwan Strait. But what it
really wants more than any of those things is ideological
purity on such vital issues as Taiwan's political status. If
your company won't accommodate itself to that hierarchy of
values, Beijing will find a competitor who will. The Chinese
Communist Party is a political institution. And it answers to
no one.
Thus is a mighty Atlanta-based multinational with $20
billion in annual global sales reduced to an obedient ``local
business.''
____
PLA-Firms Plan ``Completed''
xiao yu
Beijing says it has completed its programme of removing
thousands of firms from ownership by the military and
judicial departments, in an effort to cut corruption.
Figures now made available, although incomplete, show that
the PLA and departments of the judiciary used to own 37,670
businesses. By April 19, 459--52 percent--had been disbanded.
Of these, 3,928 belonged to the PLA and 15,531 to judicial
bodies.
In the past two years, local authorities have taken over
2,956 companies and firms from the PLA and 3,536 from
judicial bodies. The PLA has kept 1,346 business enterprises
under its wings and judicial bodies have retained 4,757
ventures. The PLA includes not just the military but also the
armed police forces. Similarly, judicial bodies cover the
police, prosecutors and courts.
President Jiang Zemin made the decision for the PLA and
judiciary to spin off their business interests in 1998. It
was seen as a major move to curb rampant corruption and
smuggling.
First announcing completion of the programme in May, Vice
President Hu Jintao reiterated Beijing's determination to
stop the ``serious harm'' of military-backed business
ventures.
``These companies take advantage of their special
connection and enjoy all kinds of perks. Some even make use
of the army, armed police and judicial organs to run
monopolies, compete for profits against private business and
threaten fair trade,'' he said.
Mr. Hu said army and judicial bodies must be run with
government funding and he urged all levels of government to
guarantee their budgets.
____
Travelers Insurance, Safeco Lose China Operating Licenses
(12 June 2000) The Beijing representative offices of three
foreign insurance companies in China have had their licenses
revoked by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC),
Zhongguo Xinwen She (China News Service) reported on June 12.
These include two U.S.-based firms--Travelers Insurance (a
member of Citigroup) and Safeco (US) Co.--and the Hong Kong-
based Gui-Jiang Insurance Agency Co.
As stated in the article, the CIRC claims these firms
``have violated the relevant insurance rules and regulations
of China.''
These regulations include: changing an operations' address
without approval; failing to submit annual work reports to
regulatory authorities regarding the work of the
representative office; and failing to submit annual reports
to regulatory authorities of the companies represented.
According to China News Service, CIRC officials believe the
foreign rep offices ``seriously violated the `Administrative
Rules Regarding Representative Offices of Foreign Insurance
Companies in China.' ''
The official also said that some representative offices of
foreign insurance companies continue to violate relevant
rules.
Last year, the CIRC designated the ``Administrative Rules''
as the primary guide to regulating foreign insurance
companies.
By the end of last year, there were 113 foreign-invested
insurance institutions from 17 economies working in China
through nearly 200 representative offices in 14 cities.
China's $70 billion annual trade surplus with the United States will
continue to grow; and since the PNTR vote, Beijing is continuing its
massive buildup in its military arena. There are new reports of the
transfer of Chinese weapons of mass destruction and other types of
deadly technologies to rogue nations. At the same time, this regime is
attempting to galvanize international opposition to the United States
in our efforts to build a missile defense system.
Since the vote on PNTR, the Chinese military has continued its
missile buildup and has continued to call for the democratic government
in Taiwan to surrender and become subject to Beijing. In addition,
Beijing is now attempting to buy more naval destroyers from Russia,
armed with the deadly
[[Page H6404]]
Sunburn nuclear-capable anti-ship missiles that were developed in
Russia for one reason, to destroy American aircraft carriers.
Since the PNTR vote, the Communist regime in Beijing has contracted
for two more of these deadly naval weapons systems. Since the PNTR
vote, there has been no move toward democratic reform or credible rule
of law in China.
Now, these are all things we were told was going to happen, all the
good things that would happen if Congress just showed our goodwill by
voting for permanent normal trade relations. Instead, things have gone
in the opposite direction. Jiang Zemin and his party have intensified
the crackdowns on religion and on the media and within the academic
community. The regime's quasi-Maoist anti-rightist campaign has spread
throughout China since our vote on PNTR. Since our vote on PNTR, the
State-run media has called the Dalai Lama a rapist and a cannibal, end
of quote. This, of course, while the Communist regime in Beijing
continues to commit its genocide in Tibet.
Ominously, after our PNTR vote the regime issued a decree ordering
Communist political cells to be formed in all private corporations.
Now we have been sold this bill of goods. We have been sold a bill of
goods: Vote for permanent normal trade relations and things are going
to go in the opposite direction. However, since our vote on PNTR,
things have been going in the wrong direction. They continue to
escalate going in precisely the opposite direction than we were told
would happen if we simply would show a sign of good faith by giving
permanent normal trade relations, which means subsidies to American
corporations to invest and create factories in China; if we just do
that, things will get better and there will be improvements along these
other lines.
We have heard repeatedly that U.S. information technology in China is
key to promoting democracy and free speech. However, since the PNTR
vote, the Chinese Communist security services have stepped up their use
of advanced western technology to do what? To crack down on Internet
users. Sadly, during the past month, U.S. companies in China have
ignored pleas for human rights and have ignored requests for them to
speak out for people who were arrested or in some way under attack for
some policy agreement with the Communist Chinese regime.
U.S. corporations have been compliant, thus, with Communist
censorship. Who is having an effect on whom here? Is our engagement
with them making them more democratic or are they corrupting our
process and undermining America's commitment to freedom and democracy?
For example, after the PNTR vote, the music of one of the most
popular female singers in China, who happens to be from Taiwan, was
banned because she sang at the inauguration of Taiwan's democratically
elected President. Subsequently, the Coca Cola Company was ordered by
Beijing to destroy all advertising that featured her image at a cost of
millions of dollars. Did Coca Cola put up resistance in the name of
free trade or free expression? Was this the kind of engagement that
would certainly point to Beijing and say, look, this is what we really
believe in freedom and that is what they should not do if they believe
in freedom?
No, they did not do that at all. What they did was comply with the
demand of the Beijing dictatorship. Engagement is not helping them
become more democratic. It is corrupting the United States of America
and it is undermining America's commitment to democracy and freedom, as
well as, I might add, adding subsidies to people who want to close
factories here and open factories there. All of these things are sinful
and all of these things have been even worse since our vote for
permanent normal trade relations.
Increasingly, Mr. Speaker, in dealing with an unreformed China what
is happening is it is ending up with a betrayal of fundamental American
values for which our children will some day pay a heavy price and the
working men and women of America are paying the price today with their
factories being shut and these companies going with tax subsidies to
Mainland China to create jobs.
I ask for support of my resolution, H.J. Res. 103.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Foley), our distinguished colleague.
Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, first my congratulations to the chairman on a
good discussion here today, and particularly the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Levin) from the Democratic side who has taken a lot of
extra efforts to make certain that this is a balanced approach to
trade. He has taken some significant pressure back home from
constituents. He understands some of the concerns raised by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) and wants to make certain
human rights are protected, religious expressions allowed.
I have visited China twice and can say from a personal observation
that there is an emerging thought in China amongst the young people,
amongst the average citizens, that suggests that they may in fact be
able to change the way Mainland China thinks; they may be able to
influence their leaders in the future. But the one thing became
apparent to me, having visited there, is that we have to be there in
order to facilitate that dialogue.
I think clearly the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) has been
very, very admirable in listening to all sides of the debate and taking
into consideration the concerns the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher) has raised. I know he does not just make these
characterizations without some background and some deep thought. I know
he cares deeply about this debate and about the people of Taiwan and
the Dalai Lama and others, and I do not criticize that strong voice
that he brings to the floor today, but my various points of view that I
have been able to study and look at suggest that there is progress on
some of those fronts, maybe not as much as we would all like and, yes,
there are some threats to average citizens, but I sense that if the
American country, the people of our country, our corporate participants
that provide jobs and provide opportunity, are not engaged in China,
then we will not be able to impact or change the dynamic of the
Communist government; we will not be able to provide incentives for
young people that recognize that entrepreneurial nationalism as it is
in America is something to strive for; freedom of expression is
something to be proud of.
It takes time to change people's ways of thinking. So I again urge a
negative vote on the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher) but urge that we continue to have this kind of spirited
debate so we can resolve some of the underlying issues we bring to the
floor today.
{time} 1330
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), who has been involved in fighting for
worker rights in this country and around the world.
(Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for
yielding me this time.
I rise in support of the resolution. Many of my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle would like to keep this debate low key, below the
radar screen this afternoon. They would like for this issue to go away.
In the land of freedom, this may be the last time we debate the issue
on the floor of the Congress, the Congress of the people, the House of
the people; this may be the last time we debate the issue of trade with
China. Sadly, this could be the last debate. We will never have the
ability to voice our concerns about an authoritarian government whose
regime this House has recently voted to coddle, to patronize. Free
trade with China is an oxymoron. Check the record. Check the record.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to use this time to talk about an even
bigger picture. In his book, the Lexus in the Olive Tree, New York
Times columnist Tom Friedman lays out what he calls globalization. We
have addressed that issue not only with trade, but in foreign policy
and a lot of other things,
[[Page H6405]]
the subject of globalization. Friedman's contention is that no longer
will there be Democrats and Republicans, one will either be a free
trader, or not; one will be a globalizer, or not. Globalization means
the spread of free market capitalism to virtually every country in the
world. He talks about how these trade agreements we are talking about
are the wave of the future. Get with it, I say to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Rohrabacher). Get with it, I say to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Brown), my friend. You are not with it.
The proponents of PNTR won their battle by arguing that we, the
opponents, were against trade and globalization. It was clever. I
cannot stress this point enough. We are not against trade, and we are
not against a global economy. Mr. Speaker, I am against deals that
cause my State, the State of New Jersey, to lose 22,000 jobs. Yes, I am
against that. I am against deals that see our textile industry exported
overseas in the name of economic progress. Yes, I am against that.
While Mr. Friedman talks of globalization and the interconnection of
economies, which is something that we cannot question, which will be
good for big business, our constituents will see their technical and
manufacturing jobs exported overseas. This sort of global economy will
see jobs that were someone's career. Our grandparents who came here had
these entry-level jobs, and we continue to export these manufacturing
jobs against the very people who used them. Out of one side of our
mouth we talk about the immigrants coming to America, but the very jobs
that we work at will no longer be here.
Mr. Speaker, we have no longer a war on turf in America or in the
world. We are not going to be fighting over boundaries, I say to my
good friend from New York. I know that. But to think that the boundary
lines are going to be the competitive forces playing out on Wall Street
and on the Internet is to bury our heads in the sand. It is absolutely
unforgivable what we have done in the last 3 months on the subject of
trade with an enemy. Our enemy is not the Chinese people, it is the
authoritarian government; and it goes long before 50 years that that
government was authoritarian.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), my distinguished colleague and friend.
Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me
this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution of the gentleman
from California and essentially do so for two reasons: the first is, we
have, I think, an opportunity to provide an incentive for the Chinese
to engage in fair international competition. I think we have an
opportunity to provide an incentive for the Chinese to improve their
labor standards, human rights standards. I think we have an opportunity
to provide an incentive for the Chinese to improve their environmental
standards.
However, I think if we continually on an analyzed basis and
potentially on a permanent basis grant most favored nations status to
the country of China, we have removed that last incentive to do these
things. I think it is incumbent upon all of us that believe those
changes are necessary is to say if you are going to do them, show us
that you will.
Secondly, I do think that we have to change the focus of the debate
and recognize that we have a choice to make today and every day, and
that is whether we are going to fight and negotiate to raise
environmental standards, raise international labor standards; or are we
simply going to engage in a race to the bottom because that is the way
the world is today as we find it; that is the way we will accept the
world as we find it, and we will accommodate ourselves.
Mr. Speaker, for 50 years we have spent the Treasury of the United
States, and tens of thousands of young Americans have given their lives
to secure our freedom, to win the Cold War, and to provide an
opportunity for democracy to spread across the world. I think we have
to make the same commitment to have our economic form of government
also spread across the globe and not race to the bottom, but work every
day to improve those international standards. We are not doing that if
we do not support the gentleman's resolution.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), the distinguished chairman of
the Committee on International Relations, who knows full well that in
this bill there are subsidies to American corporations to close their
doors here and open up factories in the dictatorship in China to use
their slave labor.
(Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the
legislation by the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) that is
before us today disapproving the extension of nondiscriminatory
treatment to the People's Republic of China.
On May 24, when the House considered a measure providing permanent
normal trade relations to China, I cited then a number of significant
concerns in our relations with China regarding the enforcement of trade
agreements, the documentation of human rights abuses, and the continued
evidence of China's nuclear proliferation.
Over the past several months, additional evidence has emerged that
China continues to play a key role in supplying sensitive nuclear
missile and chemical weapons technology to a number of states of
concern around the world. In particular, nonproliferation experts in
and out of our government believe that China has provided critical
assistance to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program.
To meet this growing threat to international peace and stability in
Asia and around the world, I joined with the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), my friend and colleague, in introducing on
July 13 the China Nonproliferation Act, a companion measure to S. 2645
introduced by Senators Thompson and Torricelli.
In short, our concerns about irresponsible Chinese policies regarding
the export of dangerous weapons of mass destruction are of even greater
concern today than they were several months ago during the debate on
granting PNTR status for China. Approving this resolution, Mr. Speaker,
of disapproval would send the right signal to Beijing that business as
usual in Chinese weapons and technology exports is undermining our
friends and allies throughout Asia and the Middle East.
China's continuing military buildup has only emboldened that nation
to claim islands and territories belonging to the Philippines and its
other neighbors in the region. Its illegal occupation of Tibet and its
brutal repression of the Tibetan people continues unabated.
Under the current annual review arrangement, we in the Congress are
able to fully examine and to debate the current human rights situation
in China and its observance of religious freedoms. I ask my colleagues
that if China is allowed to trample on the basic freedoms of its own
citizens, how can we tell other nations in Asia and in Africa and
elsewhere that they must not violate those freedoms?
I would also note that a recent report of our U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom was unanimous in its conclusions that
China needs to take concrete steps to release all persons imprisoned
for their religious beliefs and to take concrete measures to improve
their respect for religious freedom.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I urge our colleagues to support this
resolution, disapproving the extension of the nondiscriminatory
treatment of the People's Republic of China.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), our distinguished colleague.
(Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Asian
and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations, this
Member rises in opposition to House Joint Resolution 103. Despite the
recent supercharged and misleading claims by opponents to NTR that this
vote is about rewarding China, it is not that at all, but instead, a
vote for our national interests, just as was the case with the
successful passage on May 24 of legislation to provide permanent normal
[[Page H6406]]
trade relations for China and the context of its accession to the World
Trade Organization.
This Member strongly supports the continuation of normal trade
relations, NTR, status for China because it is unmistakably in
America's short-term and long-term national interests.
First, the continuation of NTR directly benefits American economic
prosperity, just as it has done for the past 20 consecutive years.
Regardless of what this body does, China will join the WTO and be
required to take major actions to open up its vast markets of 1.2
billion consumers. However, if this body recklessly disrupts current
trade by failing to continue China's current NTR status during this
interim period, we certainly jeopardize our ability to take advantage
of the benefits of China's WTO accession and give an unfair advantage
to our international competitors.
Second, continued NTR supports the U.S. national security objective
of maintaining peace and stability in East Asia. Expanding trade with
China and supporting further economic liberalization, and eventual
political reform in China provides a means of giving China a stake in
the peaceful, stable economically dynamic Asia Pacific region. If
China, on the other hand, concludes that we have concluded it as our
adversary, resources China currently devotes to economic reform could
easily be reallocated to military expansion and modernization with
adverse consequences for Taiwan and for our allies in Korea and Japan,
and a destabilized region. A rejection of NTR could well trigger such a
reaction from Beijing. Confronting China in this scenario will require
much more than the 100,000-person military force we presently have in
the Pacific area.
Mr. Speaker, this particular annual debate, triggered again this year
by H.J. Res. 103, has become highly counterproductive. It is very
damaging to Sino-American relations, and importantly, with little or no
positive results in China on human rights or freedom, or any positive
impact on our relationship with that country and its people.
{time} 1345
Given the strong support and 40-vote margin this body provided in
passing PNTR on May 24, denying the continuation of NTR during this
interim period is self-evidently neither in our short- nor long-term
national interest, and therefore, this Member strongly urges his
colleagues to join him opposing House Joint Resolution 103.
This Member, in contrast to what the gentleman from New Jersey says,
does not intend that this have a low-key atmosphere. If Members are
convinced of the rightness of their position in opposition to the
resolution, let it have full public scrutiny.
The gentleman from Michigan and I have established, by our action, in
the House, at least, and we expect that the other body will consider it
soon, an opportunity for a full review of what China does in human
rights by the creation of an executive-legislative branch Helsinki-type
Commission. We in the Congress are going to have plenty of opportunity
to scrutinize what they do with respect to their people. That is a
better mechanism than we have now. It is a better mechanism than this
annual debate.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Rohrabacher resolution.
Mr. Speaker, as this Member mentioned, this body passed H.R. 4444,
legislation granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China
in the context of China's accession to the World Trade Organization
(WTO) by a strong margin of 40 votes: 237-197. As the other body has
not yet acted on this important legislation and China is still
negotiating its WTO accession protocols, the continuation of normal
trade with China during this interim requires another annual
Presidential waiver as contained in the Trade Act of 1974.
Unfortunately, despite the support in the House for Normal Trade
Relations with China, as reflected by the successful passage of PNTR,
the introduction of H.J. Res. 103 requires the House to vote on
extending Normal Trade Relations status for China yet again.
There is perhaps no more important set of related foreign policy
issues for the 21st century than the challenges and opportunities posed
by the emergence of a powerful and fast-growing China. However, today
we are not having a debate focused on those important challenges.
Instead, as we have in the past, we are debating whether to impose
1930s Great Depression-era Smoot-Hawley trade tariffs on China that the
rest of the world and China know for our own American interests we
realistically will never impose.
This Member again points out that this particular annual debate has
become highly counterproductive as it unnecessarily wastes our precious
foreign policy leverage and seriously damages our Government's
credibility with the leadership of China and with our allies. It
hinders or ability to coax the Chinese into the international system of
world trade rules, non-proliferation norms, and human rights standards.
Moreover, Beijing knows the United States cannot deny NTR without
severely harming American workers, farmers, consumers or businesses, or
do it without devastating the economies of Hong Kong and Taiwan.
It is true, as NRT opponents argue, that ending normal trade
relations with China would deliver a very serious blow to the Chinese
economy, but the draconian action of raising the average weighted
tariff on Chinese imports to 44 percent instead of the current average
of 4 to 5 percent would severely harm the United States economy as
well. China is already the 13th largest market abroad for American
goods and the 4th largest market for American agricultural exports. If
NTR is denied to China, Beijing will certainly retaliate against the
over $14 billion in U.S. exports to China. As a result, many of the
approximately 200,000 high-paying export jobs related to United States-
China trade would disappear while the European Union, Canada, Japan,
Australia, Brazil, and other major trading nations would rush to fill
the void.
Regardless of how this body votes on NTR, China will soon join the
WTO and be required to take major actions to open up its vast market of
1.2 billion consumers. As part of China's WTO accession process, the
U.S. negotiated an outstanding export-oriented, market access agreement
which significantly lowers China's high import tariffs and allows for
direct marketing and distributing in China. For example, the tariff on
beef will fall from 45 percent to just 12 percent. Quantitative
restrictions on oilseeds and soybean imports are abolished. Indeed, it
is projected that by 2003, China could account for 37 percent of future
growth in U.S. agricultural exports. Prior to the agreement, China
frequently required manufacturing offsets--most products sold in China
had to be made in China. This export-oriented agreement abolishes that
unfair offset and eliminates currently required industrial technology
transfers allowing products made in America to be sold in China. This
agreement makes it less likely that American companies need to open
foreign factories and thereby export jobs. Given that America's markets
are already open at WTO standards to Chinese exports, the U.S. has
effectively given up nothing with the new agreement; all the
concessions have been made by China.
However, during this interim period as China continues to take the
steps necessary to join the WTO, it is necessary to provide continued,
uninterrupted NTR status to China on an annual basis to help ensure
that American commercial interests remain engaged in China in
preparation for the opening of China required when China joins the WTO.
For the past 20 years, the U.S. has provided China with NTR status on
an annual basis. It appears to make no sense to this Member to revoke
China's NTR status now and only for an interim period thereby
significantly jeopardizing the ability of the U.S. to take advantage of
the benefits of China's forthcoming accession to the WTO.
To elaborate on our own national security interests, the continuation
of NTR for China, indeed, supports the U.S. national security objective
of maintaining peace and stability in East Asia. Sino-American
relations are increasingly problematic and uncertain. In the wake of
our accidental bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade and China's
confusion about U.S. continuing support for Taiwan, rejection of NTR,
if only for an interim period, could result in a resurgence of
resentful nationalism as hard-liners in Beijing characterize a negative
NTR vote as an American attempt to weaken and contain China. Resources
China currently devotes to economic reform could easily be reallocated
to military expansion with adverse consequences for Taiwan and our
allies in Korea and Japan, and a destabilized region. Confronting China
in this scenario will require much more than the 100,000 strong force
we presently have in the Pacific. China is not a strategic partner; it
is increasingly as economic competitor that is growing as a regional
power. However, it is not an adversary. If the United States is astute
and firm--if America increases our engagement with China and helps
integrate it into the international community--it is certainly still
possible to encourage China along the path to a complementary
relationship with America instead of an incredible level of conflict.
China is emerging from years of isolation and the future direction of
China remains in flux--more than any major country. WTO accession and
continued--and hopefully soon to be permanent--NTR are critical for the
success of China's economic reform process and
[[Page H6407]]
those Chinese leaders, like Premier Zhu Rongji, who support it. These
reforms, being pursued over the formidable opposition of old-style
Communist hardliners, will eventually provide the foundation for a more
open economy there, a process that, in the long term, should facilitate
political liberalization and improved human rights. In the near term,
China will be required more and more to govern civil society on the
basis of the rule of law, clearly a positive development we should be
encouraging. Rejection of this standard annual renewal of NTR prior to
providing China with PNTR would, indeed, jeopardize the pace and scope
of these reforms in China.
Continuing to provide China with NTR and China's accession to the WTO
does not guarantee that China will always take a responsible,
constructive course. That is why the distinguished gentleman from
Michigan [Mr. Levin] and this Member proposed an initiative which was
attached to the recently-passed legislation providing PNTR that
incorporates special import anti-surge protections for the U.S. and
other trade enforcement resources for our government to ensure China's
compliance with WTO rules. This initiative also proposes a new
Congressional-Executive Commission on Chinese Human Rights that will
report to the Congress annually on human rights concerns, including
recommendations for timely legislative action.
Mr. Speaker, this Member believes that these additional provisions,
particularly the Commission on Chinese Human Rights with the guaranteed
review of its findings and recommendations by the appropriate standing
committee in the House, do, indeed, address the multi-faceted concerns
of our colleagues. The Levin-Bereuter initiative assures that China's
compliance with their commitments and their human rights record will
certainly not be ignored by the Congress or the Executive Branch. The
Commission will be a far more effective way to address human rights
issues than the noisy but ineffective annual debate on extending NTR.
Some have advocated the revocation of NTR status for China in order
to punish Beijing for weapons proliferation and its espionage
operations against the United States. As one of the nine members of the
bipartisan Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/
Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China which
investigated and reported on Chinese espionage, and as a former
counter-intelligence officer in our military, this Member adamantly
rejects such linkage. The United States has been and will continue to
be the target of foreign, including Chinese, espionage. We should have
expected China to spy on us, just as we should know that others,
including our allies, spy on us. While our outrage at China for spying
is understandable, that anger and energy ought to be directed on
correcting the severe and inexcusable problems in our own government.
Our losses are ultimately the result of our own government's lax
security, indifference, naivete and incompetence, especially in our
Department of Energy weapons laboratories, the National Security
Council and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The scope and quality
of our own counter-intelligence operations, especially those associated
with the Department of Energy's weapons labs, are completely unrelated
to whether or not a country like China has NTR status. Indeed, revoking
NTR status for China does absolutely nothing to improve the security of
our weapons labs or protect militarily sensitive technologies. However,
this feel-good symbolic act of punishment would inflict severe harm on
American business and the 200,000 American jobs that exports to China
provide. It makes no sense to punish American farmers and workers for
the gross security lapses by our own government of which the Chinese--
and undoubtedly other nations--took advantage.
Similarly, revoking NTR status during this interim period before
China's accession to the WTO for proliferation reasons will have
minimal, if any, impact in halting Chinese proliferation. On the
contrary, China's likely reaction would be refuse any cooperation on
this issue to the detriment of U.S. national security interests around
the globe.
The United States has convinced nearly every other country in the
region that the best way to avoid conflict is to engage each other in
trade and closer economic ties. Abandoning this basic tenet of our
foreign policy with China--as H.J. Res. 103 would certainly do--would
be a serious shock and would be an extraordinary setback from much of
what our nation has been trying to achieve in the entire Asia-Pacific
region. It would send many countries scrambling to choose between China
or the United States.
We should first do no harm to our own nation and America's citizens.
Rejecting annual NTR status for China is self-evidently neither in our
short term nor our long term national interest. Therefore, Mr. Speaker,
this Member is strongly opposed to H.J. Res. 103 and again urgently
urges its rejection.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Cleveland, Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who has opposed our government's
policy of subsidizing industry's practice of shutting down U.S. plants
and moving them to China.
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, the fact that today's vote on annual
renewal of MFN with China occurs after the House's previous close vote
granting China permanent MFN gives us a chance to re-evaluate the
wisdom of our action.
Since that vote in May, we have learned that several of our
assumptions about the meaning of the vote and of China's role in the
world have proven false. Consider this. The Wall Street Journal ran an
article that I want to quote from. The headline was, ``House Vote
Primes U.S. to Boost Investments in China.''
The article says that the China deal with the U.S. on trade has less
to do with U.S. workers making and exporting goods to the Chinese and
more about Chinese workers working in U.S.-owned factories in China for
import to the U.S.
The Journal quotes a Wall Street economist saying, ``This deal is
about investments, not exports.'' Indeed, the same article quotes a
Washington-based analyst who said: ``U.S. exports will increase, but
not at the rate of investment, and the corporate community has been
quiet about that. They've been able to avoid telling that story.''
I want to read that quote again. This is a Washington-based analyst:
``U.S. exports will increase, but not at the rate of investment, and
the corporate community has been quiet about that. They've been able to
avoid telling that story.''
We are going to tell the story here. Since the vote for permanent MFN
with China, a company in the Cleveland area which provides jobs for my
constituents said it will close in the U.S. in favor of a new factory
in China.
Mr. Speaker, as a director of the UAW in the Cleveland region wrote
to his Senators last week, ``The first casualty of normal trade
relations has occurred. . . . It is obvious that Rubbermaid's
cancellation of the Nestaway contract is not about world competition,
it is about naked greed. Nestaway's story is about only one of the
thousands of small American companies which are confronted with an
economic squeeze brought about by unfair trade laws. PNTR for China
will be the death knell for many small companies.''
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Speaker, the center core argument of this debate today is never
addressed. People always try to ignore it. I would just like to draw
the attention of those people reading the Congressional Record or
listening to this debate to this, that over and over again we have
stated that this is not about free trade. This is not a debate about
free trade, or even engaging in China. People have a right to do
business in China.
The reason why the American corporate community is insisting on
normal trade relations status, which is a specific status, is so that
those corporations can receive taxpayer subsidies and loan guarantees
so they can close up their factories in the United States and open up
factories in China to exploit a near slave labor, where people are not
permitted to join unions, and do so at the taxpayers' risk, U.S.
taxpayers' risk.
Mr. Speaker, this is a sin against the American people. It is not
leading to more freedom. They are laughing at us because we are
subsidizing their $70 billion surplus which they are using to build
weapons systems to kill the American military personnel that some day
may have to confront their belligerency.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to House Joint Resolution
103, which would terminate normal trade relations with China 60 days
after enactment.
By raising tariffs to the prohibitive levels that applied before
1980, and thereby prompting mirror retaliation on the part of the
Chinese against $14 billion in U.S. exports, this bill would
effectively extinguish trade relations between our two countries.
House Joint Resolution 103 is an annual resolution of disapproval of
the President's recommendation to extend
[[Page H6408]]
normal trade relations status to China under the Jackson-Vanik
amendment to the Trade Act of 1974.
In light of our action earlier this year on H.R. 4444, rejecting
House Joint Resolution 103 should be pro forma.
On May 24, after a vigorous debate which considered the opportunities
that will be possible for the United States and the Chinese people when
China accedes to the World Trade Organization, the House voted 237 to
197 to eliminate this annual review of China's NTR status upon China's
accession to the WTO.
Unfortunately, H.R. 4444 is still pending in the other body, and I
hope that H.R. 4444 will go as quickly as possible to the President
without amendment. As the historic debate and the strong vote on H.R.
4444 documents, there is overwhelming support in this body for bringing
China into the rules-based trading system of the WTO. It is the right
thing to do for Americans and for the Chinese people.
Under the WTO deal, in exchange for applying tariffs on Chinese
imports identical to those in effect now, United States exporters will
have unprecedented access to 1.2 billion consumers in China. Tariffs on
our exports to China will be steeply reduced, and the Chinese trade
regime subject to the whole scale of reforms.
For example, under the agreement, average tariffs on agricultural
goods would drop from 40 percent to 17 percent, Chinese tariffs on
American-made automobiles would fall 75 percent, while quotas on U.S.
auto exports to China would be eliminated entirely.
The opportunity we have to impose an enforceable system of fair trade
rules on a nation of 1.2 billion people, as it emerges from the iron
grip of communism and state planning, is one that cannot be lost. In my
estimation, the revolutionary change WTO rules will bring to China
dwarfs any other avenue of influence available to the United States.
Maintaining normal trade relations supports the continued presence of
Americans throughout Chinese society, whether they be entrepreneurs,
teachers, religious leaders, or missionaries. It is these individual
contacts that are bringing our ideals of freedom to the Chinese people.
These contacts would be lost if we revoked NTR.
The Reverend Pat Robertson has urged Congress ``to keep the door to
the message of freedom and God's love'' open, not shut. ``Leaving a
billion people in spiritual darkness punishes not the Chinese
government but the Chinese people,'' he wrote. ``The only way to pursue
morality is to engage China fully and openly as a friend.''
Motorola, my corporate constituent, directly promotes the exchange of
ideas through its activities in China. For example, Motorola sends
hundreds of Chinese employees to its United States facilities each year
to attend technology, engineering, and management seminars. In a
country where only 10 to 15 percent of the people have access to a
college education, this is precious training that allows for eye-
opening exposure to the American way of life.
H.R. 4444 has the active bipartisan support of more former presidents
and cabinet officials, more distinguished Americans, more small
businessmen and farmers, more Governors, more religious and human
rights leaders, both here and in China, more of our allies, such as
Taiwan and Great Britain, than any foreign policy or trade legislation
in recent memory. H.R. 4444 even has the support of a past president of
the United Auto Workers, Leonard Woodcock.
Denying normal trade relations with China means severing ties that
would take years to repair. For the interests of all Americans and for
the Chinese people, I urge a no vote on House Joint Resolution 103.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman
from Georgia (Ms. McKinney), who understands this debate is about
China, not about its 1 billion consumers but about 1 billion workers,
many of whom work as slave labor.
Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher), has it right, and I am pleased to support his bill. It is
the only moral position to take.
It is amazing how far backwards this Congress will bend for big
business. This Congress should stand for small people, for human need,
and not corporate greed. Why else would a young woman work 70 hours a
week for pennies an hour and end up owing the company? Two hundred
years ago they called that sharecropping, and it was black people, but
they never called it freedom. Yet, Kathi Lee Gifford handbags and Huffy
bicycles and Timberland shoes and of course Nike, operate factories
where the standard is to do just that.
We will hear folks talk about China trade bringing democratic values
to the people. I think the people of China already have democratic
values, and these corporations work with the repressive Chinese
government to deny the Chinese people the democracy that they want.
Besides, U.S. corporations are running away from developing
democracies as if they have the plague, and are instead investing in
the world's worst authoritarian regimes. They have a history of doing
that. That is why the slave trade flourished; so, too, trade with the
Nazis.
By definition, what is happening in China, especially to women, is
slavery. If it was bad for America and it is bad for Sudan, then it is
bad for China. We should not be supporting it.
I know American corporations can do better than that. That is why I
have introduced the Corporate Code of Conduct. I urge my colleagues to
support the Corporate Code of Conduct and to support this bill.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), one of this body's greatest spokesmen for
human rights, who knows that we should not be subsidizing American
corporations to close factories here and open them up in China.
{time} 1400
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
California (Mr. Rohrabacher) for yielding me this time and for his kind
remarks. I have the highest respect for Mr. Rohrabacher,--a true
champion of human rights.
Mr. Speaker, in 1994, President Clinton decided to conduct an
experiment. He decided to delink most favored nation status for China
with human rights on the theory that more trade and investment with the
United States would be the quickest way to persuade the government of
China to treat its own people as human beings. At the same time, the
Clinton administration gave up its power to use even the threat of the
loss of MFN as a lever against Beijing's military aggression against
Taiwan and other neighboring countries, and its military threats
against the United States as well.
Mr. Speaker, we are now 6 years into these two risky experiments with
the lives of 1.2 billion people who are unfortunate enough to live
under a cruel dictatorship and with the national security of the U.S.
and the whole free world hanging in the balance. Nobody can seriously
argue that either experiment has been a success. Instead, it has
brought the people of China 6 more years of torture, forced labor,
forced abortion, and sterilization, the crushing of the free trade
unions, the denial of fundamental rights of freedom of religion, of
expression of assembly, and of the press.
The Chinese Communist regime is not only threatening to invade
Taiwan, its senior military leaders have also threatened to attack the
United States of America. These are our great business partners.
Mr. Speaker, here is what Wei Jingsheng, the father of the Chinese
democracy movement and long-time prisoner of conscience said in 1999
about the practical effects of MFN on the everyday lives of political
and religious prisoners in China:
``The attitude of prison authorities toward political prisoners is
directly related to the amount of pressure being exerted by the
international community. When international pressure was high, the
number of dissidents sent to prison declined drastically and prison
conditions for political prisoners somewhat improved. In 1998,
condemnation of China's position was abandoned entirely. The direct
consequence of this easing of pressure was that, not only
[[Page H6409]]
did the government crack down on activists attempting to organize an
opposition party, but they also cruelly suppressed nonviolent
demonstrations by ordinary people.''
Mr. Speaker, that is not me talking, that is Wei Jingsheng. When the
U.S. turns up the economic pressure of Beijing, the beatings and the
torture are less severe and are imposed on fewer people. When the
pressure lets up, the repression gets worse.
But, Mr. Speaker, Members do not have to take Wei's word for the fact
that Beijing responds to strength rather than weakness. All we have to
do is watch what happens when Beijing does something that the Clinton
administration and big business really hate, such as tolerating
software piracy.
When that happens, Mr. Speaker, do the constructive engagers follow
their own advice? Do they decide to just grin and bear it, go on
trading and investing in China in the hope that eventually the Chinese
Government will see the light? No, they do not. Instead, they threaten
to impose trade sanctions, the very sanctions they say are
inappropriate or ineffective when it comes to stopping torture and
other human rights abuses. Talk about misplaced priorities.
Mr. Speaker, the threat to withhold trade privileges works to
persuade Beijing to respect international copyrights because the
Chinese dictatorship values the U.S. as a market for their expanding
economy. So when we threaten their access to our market, they respond
by respecting international copyrights. Why should that not also work
when it comes to stopping or at least mitigating torture of religious
prisoners and political prisoners?
Maybe there is a reason, Mr. Speaker. Maybe the Chinese Government is
more attached to torture than they are to software piracy, but maybe
not.
Let us try and do an experiment, a more promising one than the failed
experiment of delinkage. Let us hold out the hand of friendship to
Beijing, as Ronald Reagan did to Gorbachev, but make it clear that
American friendship and American largesse are conditional on Beijing's
observing certain minimum standards of human decency. Let us convince
them that good things will flow to them from the United States if and
only if they stop threatening to invade Taiwan and to shoot missiles at
Los Angeles.
Mr. Speaker, the constructive engagers continually want us to give up
our power and try any strategy except their own 6-year-old experiment
which is looking more and more like a miserable failure. Since our May
vote on PNTR, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
has reported that the Beijing regime has intensified its repression of
Uighur Muslims, the Tibetan Buddhists. It has intensified its crackdown
on Falun Gong as well as to Catholic and Protestant leaders.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a yes vote on the measure offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee
on Rules.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Crane), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade, for his very
important leadership on this issue.
We all have gone through this discussion very vigorously over the
past several months. We know that this, as many people have said, was
the most important vote that we would face, some reported in a
generation, in their entire careers, whether we would grant permanent
normal trade relations with the People's Republic of China.
Because we have not seen the completion of China's accession in the
World Trade Organization, we are here today dealing with this annual
renewal question. As we look at this issue, I have to say that, having
listened to my friends with whom I disagree on this issue, the
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) and the gentleman from
California (Mr. Hunter), I just listened to the statements of the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), no one is arguing about the
problems that exist in China. We all know that they are there.
I think it is important for our colleagues who oppose us on this who
support what really is a policy of trying to disengage, to end normal
trade relations with China, we have to recognize that we do share the
same goal of trying to ensure the recognition of human rights, to make
sure that we maintain stability, the stability in the region, that we
diminish the threat to Taiwan, that we do everything that we possibly
can to recognize the rights of the people in Tibet. All of these
questions, technology transfer, all of these are very high priorities
for all of us.
The question is, how do we most effectively deal with them? Well, I
argue that it is very clear that a policy of trying to encourage the
spread of our Western values is the most effective way to deal with it.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to report that we have an instance which has
shown dramatic success, and that instance to which I am pleased to
point to took place just 2 weeks ago. I am talking about the election
in Mexico.
Now the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) suspected that I
might want to hit him hard on this. I am not going to hit him, I am
going to praise and congratulate him, because he stood in this well in
1993 when we, on a regular, on regular occasions would engage in debate
with the gentlewoman from Toledo, Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
The gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) and I were on the
same side going against the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) when we
were arguing in behalf of the North American Free Trade Agreement. We
realized as we were arguing for that that we were going to do
everything that we could to enhance the economy of Mexico, to improve
the standard of living.
At the time that we were debating the NAFTA, working hard with the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) my friend in the back of the Chamber
here, and others, we argued that economic reform which began under
President Salinas in 1988 was a very positive force. We saw
privatization, decentralization. We saw President Salinas close down
the largest oil refinery in Mexico City. We saw very bold moves towards
free markets in Mexico.
When we were debating the NAFTA, one of the criticisms leveled by
opponents to the NAFTA was the critical corruption that existed in
Mexico, the fact that they did not have free and fair elections. We did
not argue with that. But we said that there is an interdependence
between economic and political freedom. Maintaining strong economic
ties is the best way to bring about the kind of political change and
reform that we all want to see take place.
So what is it that took place? We saw the implementation of the
NAFTA. We have seen great benefits, dramatic improvement in economic
relations, a great increase in exports from the United States to
Mexico, from Mexico into the United States, a dramatic improvement in
the standard of living to the point where Mexico's middle-class
population is today larger than the entire Canadian population.
Yes, we still have problems. We all recognize that. But we did see
for the first time free and fair elections. In 71 years of one-party
rule, we had so many problems developed. President Zedillo, to his
credit, said that he wanted self-determination in Mexico. Having
followed economic reform, they brought about free and fair elections.
I was pleased, along with the former Secretary of State James Baker
and the Mayor of San Diego Susan Golding to have led a delegation of 44
members observing that election. It was terrific. To see the enthusiasm
the people of Mexico had for participating in an election where their
votes actually count was very reassuring.
Mr. Speaker, the same thing is going to happen in the People's
Republic of China, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, maybe
not for 5 years or 10 years, but clearly based on the evidence that we
have seen in Mexico, in South Korea, in Taiwan, that clearly is the
wave of the future.
So expanding our values into China is the best way that we can deal
with repression. Rejecting this resolution of disapproval, realizing
that Taiwan is very supportive of maintaining our ties with China,
those sorts of things will benefit us, they will benefit the people of
China and help maintain world peace.
[[Page H6410]]
Vote no on this resolution of disapproval.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Mascara) who recognizes that countries like
Mexico and Taiwan are democracies and do not have slave labor camps
like the People's Republic of China.
Mr. MASCARA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for
yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of workers who do not have to
toil in sweatshop conditions, workers who are not denied the right to
organize, workers who are not confined to slave labor factories.
I rise in support of American workers, workers at Wheeling Pittsburgh
Steel in my district, workers at Weirton Steel, in the textile mills of
North Carolina and the auto factories of Michigan.
These are the people who have seen first hand the effects of
unbalanced trade with China. These are real people who have seen their
jobs moved overseas and their communities decimated.
I should mention from the start that I am a strong supporter of free
trade. Our country has profited greatly from exports, and we are poised
to take great strides as global leaders of the high-tech industry.
But free trade must be fair trade. We have suffered through many
trade disputes with China without satisfactory resolution. Illegal
dumping and subsidies have hurt scores of American companies and cost
many workers their jobs.
We have been told that we must pass normal trade relations so that
China can be admitted into the WTO. We are told that China's entry into
the WTO will hold them accountable to international standards and lead
them to respect the rule of law.
But the People's Republic of China have had a dismal record in
previous trade agreements with our country. Moreover, the WTO itself
has proven inconsistent in resolving trade disputes. Our country
recently won two prominent WTO cases against the European Union, which
has subsequently failed to honor both of these rulings.
If Europe can ignore WTO, what message does that send to China? What
assurances should we have that our accession agreements are meaningful?
If we look for trade to change China, we are looking in the wrong
direction. If we expect increased commerce to bring more freedom to the
Chinese, we are being misled. The only thing we can be sure of is that
our country's workers will be asked to risk their jobs in the hope that
social and political conditions in China will improve.
I am unwilling to ask my constituents to make this sacrifice. I am
not about to risk my neighbors' well-being for anybody, including
China. I support the resolution to deny China most-favored-nation's
status.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer).
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Levin) for yielding me this time, and I thank him once again for his
hard work on permanent normal trade relations and his successful
legislative efforts to help us in a bipartisan way establish, not just
a yearly way of monitoring human rights, not just a monthly way of
monitoring human rights, but a daily way of us trying to monitor and
improve the human rights condition in China, something we are all very
concerned about.
Mr. Speaker, Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United
States said that he sought ``an empire for liberty''. He was not
content merely to say that the 13 original colonies were what we should
improve our great Republic's emphasis on human rights and expanding
liberties. He sought in 1803 to purchase the Louisiana territories or
the Louisiana Purchase, as it was later called, and expand the United
States. He also sought with the Lewis and Clark Expeditions in 1803
through 1806 to also look for a greater expansion of the United States.
As we debated permanent normal trade for China, many of us came to
the conclusion that the status quo between the United States and China
simply was not good enough for human rights, for the environment, and
for trade, and that we wanted to change that. We wanted to penetrate
the Chinese markets with products, not exporting our jobs. We wanted to
see the Chinese improve on their human rights condition. It was not
good enough.
{time} 1415
Therefore, we sought an engagement strategy of confrontation, an
engagement strategy of challenging the Chinese Government, an
engagement strategy of penetrating their markets and opening up their
markets to American products.
We are having a similar debate today. None of us are happy with the
status quo. None of us think the Chinese have made enough progress on
human rights. None of us feel that they have gone far enough in terms
of emphasizing freedom and liberty, as Jefferson talked about. None of
us feel like our workers are being fairly treated, at this point, with
fair trade opportunities. So we came to a 13-year agreement to try to
find ways to cut their barriers to trade, to cut their surplus on our
trade, and try to find new ways for workers and farmers to get into
their markets.
I would hope that we would continue, in the tradition of the
permanent normal trade debate that we had, to find new ways to engage
the Chinese to try to insist that the United States make trade policy
national security policy, because our workers and our jobs depend upon
it. So we have to get better fair trade policies. We have to get
agreements that allow the Chinese to take down their barriers and
quotas and tariffs to trade, and that is what we are trying to do with
the permanent normal trade agreement.
So I would hope in a bipartisan way, Members of the Democratic and
Republican parties would continue to try to come together and not only
support, as we have, permanent normal trade, but fair trade policies.
Not free trade but fair trade policies that penetrate the Chinese
market, penetrate new markets; that do not sell our jobs overseas, but
get our products into new markets.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from California
(Mr. Rohrabacher) has 12\1/2\ minutes remaining, the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Crane) has 13 minutes remaining, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 18\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has 13\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be
allowed to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Stearns) and that he be allowed to control that time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Hunter).
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and let me say to all my colleagues who have been engaged in this
debate that I think it has been a high-level debate.
I think the theme that my colleague and good friend, the gentleman
from California (Mr. Dreier), just made was a central theme that has
been advanced by the side in favor of most favored nation trading
status for China. It is a theme that has resonated throughout this
debate. The theme is essentially that when the United States moves
trade dollars abroad and we engage in liberal trade practices with a
nation, good things happen; and, therefore, we can expect good things
to happen with China.
I am reminded that in 1941, Carl Anderson, one of our former
colleagues, the gentleman from Minnesota, warned his colleagues, and
this was about 6 months before Pearl Harbor, that there was a chance
that the American fleet might at some point be engaged with the
Japanese fleet in combat. And he said at that time that when that
engagement occurred we would be fighting a Japanese fleet that was
built with American steel and fueled with American petroleum. Six
months later, at Pearl Harbor, a lot of ships were sunk, a lot of
planes destroyed, and 5,000 Americans killed and wounded by a Japanese
fleet that was built with American steel and fueled with American
petroleum.
That attempt at engagement with Japan's coprosperity sphere for
Southeast Asia did not work. In fact, the
[[Page H6411]]
fruits of American trade came back to kill Americans on the
battlefields in the South Pacific. Similarly, the United States was one
of the biggest investors in Nazi Germany, and I think we can all
conclude that that massive transfer of funds did not work. It did not
bring about good things.
Now, let us examine what China is doing with the trade dollars we are
sending them. The second of the Sovremenny-class missile destroyers has
now been delivered to China. This is the missile destroyer type built
by the Russians for the sole purpose of killing American aircraft
carriers. It is armed with the high speed Sunburn anti-ship missiles,
which are very difficult to defend against. And that transfer is
accompanied by the transfer of SU27 fighter aircraft, very high
performance aircraft, also air-to-air refueling capability, which is
now being purchased by the Chinese with American trade dollars.
American trade dollars are also going to help construct the components
of weapons of mass destruction and rocketry that is also being diffused
around the world to such nations as Iraq and Syria.
So we are helping to build with American trade dollars a military
machine, a war machine, in China. And I think it is a tragedy. Because
in the century we have just left, where 619,000 Americans were killed
in the bloodiest century in the history of the world, we left the
century in a position of dominance, of absolute military dominance,
having disassembled the Soviet empire.
Now, with our own hand, with $70 billion a year in this trade
imbalance with China, $70 billion in American cash, we are helping to
raise up with our own hand another superpower, which one day, either in
proxy or by direct conflict, may engage American forces on battlefields
and may kill American soldiers and sailors with technology and
equipment that has been purchased with American trade dollars. That is
the tragedy of this MFN for China.
I realize it is a fait accompli, but I hope my colleagues will
reflect on the military machine that we are constructing in this new
century.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).
(Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I rise in strong opposition to what I regard to be a
shortsighted and, I believe, a very misguided attempt to undermine
continued progress in the U.S.-Chinese relationship.
Just a few months ago, a bipartisan majority of the House voted to
extend permanent normal trade relations to China. Now, this is not a
vote that occurred in a vacuum. It followed 10 years of annual review
of China's human rights policies under the Jackson-Vanik procedures
that is now the law pertaining to trade with China. Under these
procedures, we spent the last decade in committee hearings and in
debates here on the floor. We spent the last decade analyzing and
reanalyzing virtually every aspect of the relationship that we have
with China.
During that time I think two central tenets emerged. First, none of
us are satisfied with the current political environment that exists in
China. Second, all of us would like to see greater and more profound
changes occur in China. On that we all agree. But then we diverge. We
diverge on how we are going to bring that about.
There is a group in the House, a minority in the House, that believes
the best way to effectuate change in China is by isolating them. I
respect that point of view; I disagree with it. They would have us cut
off economic and political ties to the most populous nation on earth by
voting first against permanent normal trade relations and now, today,
against the annual renewal of the Jackson-Vanik waiver.
A majority of the House, and the administration, rejects this view.
They believe, as I do, that change in China is going to occur only if
the United States continues to help nurture those elements within
Chinese society that promote change; namely, the expanding free market
system, a new civil society that is emerging, and reform of the
political party system. And we can only nurture these elements if we
are engaged.
This year, after a long national debate that preceded it, the House
was faced with a stark choice between these competing views. The
majority rejected isolationism in favor of engagement. We rejected the
flawed annual Jackson-Vanik procedures in favor of a more thoughtful,
long-term approach to U.S.-China relations. We believe the Senate will
follow shortly and that a new and more productive era in U.S.-China
relations will begin.
There are some in the U.S. Congress who want us to change course with
today's vote. They urge that we return to unproductive policies of the
past by voting against renewal of the Jackson-Vanik waiver this year.
That would be a mistake, Mr. Speaker. This historic opportunity awaits
us as we venture into the 21st century, an opportunity to help redefine
our relationships with China, an opportunity to help bring greater
security to Asia, and an opportunity to bring forth real change in
China through the magic of the free enterprise.
A ``yes'' vote today would be a vote for the past. I urge my
colleagues to vote against the failed policies of the past and for a
more enlightened future. I urge a ``no'' vote on this resolution.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman
from Toledo, Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who fights for justice so workers can
share in the wealth that they create.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown)
for yielding me this time and for his leadership on this issue, as well
as the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher); and I rise to
express my strong support for this resolution to disapprove most
favored nation status for China.
Why? Due to China's growing arrogance and record of transgressions,
even in the wake of this body's unfortunate vote to grant unconditional
permanent normal trade relations with China just a few weeks ago, by
only a handful of votes I might add. So, what has happened? Three days
after that vote, the Jiang regime clenched its fists even tighter on
religious freedom in China when a Chinese court sentenced a Catholic
priest to jail for 6 years. Why? For printing Bibles.
And then 10 days after the vote here in the House, Communist China
repressed free speech again when Chinese officials arrested Huang Qi, a
Chinese Web site operator, for posting articles about government
corruption and human rights violations in China, including the 1989
massacre of pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square. At 5:15 on June
3, with the Chinese police at his door, Huang posted his last message
on his Web site. It said, ``Thanks to all who make an effort on behalf
of democracy in China.'' He wrote, ``They have come. Goodbye.''
Huang now faces a prison sentence of 10 years or more because the
State says he is trying to subvert state power.
And then 2 weeks after the vote here in this House, Communist China
proved its unworthiness again when China broke its promise to open its
markets to California-based Qualcomm Corporation's cellular phone
technology, a deal that was key to China's earning U.S. support to join
the World Trade Organization. And that was after the premier of China
had personally assured Secretary Daley over at the Commerce Department
that China would open its markets to Qualcomm, and they even signed a
deal to that effect.
Based on this abysmal continuing record of oppression and human
rights abuses, no one should support permanent extension. Today, we
have a chance to cast a vote; and it should be for disapproving most
favored nation relations with China.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
My colleagues, I would like to ask how many people here believe that
governments in general will do purposely, decisively things that are
not in their national interest? Do we really believe that governments
in the world, especially the Chinese Government, are so stupid, so
unclear about who they are and what they want that they are going to do
something that they believe would lead to their own demise?
Everything we have heard here today, and everything we heard during
[[Page H6412]]
the debate on PNTR, suggests that we all have one goal, and that is to
make sure that China changes itself from the totalitarian system that
now exists, from the system that we have just heard described that
takes away freedom from their own people, that enslaves people, that
acts as an aggressor nation, that threatens its neighbors. We all want
to change that; right? Everybody here has said that is their goal.
{time} 1430
Well, do my colleagues really believe that the Chinese Government
thinks that PNTR will in fact create that same metamorphosis inside of
them? Of course not. Do my colleagues think it is at all odd that the
Chinese Government wants PNTR? If they agreed with any Member on the
floor here about the ramifications of PNTR, do my colleagues think they
would be saying, yes, please let us have more trade so that we can
become a gentler nation and a nicer, kinder, gentler nation so that we
can actually dissolve ourselves into some sort of Jeffersonian
democracy? Of course not.
What the Chinese Government knows and understands perfectly well is
that what this trade does is in fact embolden them. It supports the
regime. The Chinese people and the Chinese Government have a social
compact they have entered into, and it is this. This is the agreement
they have reached that the Government says, we will do more for you in
terms of your economic welfare; and you, in turn, will keep us in
power. That is the agreement.
What PNTR does and what normal trade relations does with China is to
stabilize an aggressive regime. They know it. That is why they support
it.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), who has fought for workers' rights all over
the globe and especially in the United States and Latin America and
China.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments and
for his leadership on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, all of us know this House has debated and resolved the
question of China's trade status. But the concerns raised during that
debate, the abuse of human rights, the destruction of the environment,
the denial of religious freedom, China's failure to live up to trade
agreements, we have not begun to even respond to those.
And the situation has only grown worse, as we just heard from the
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who has by example illustrated to
us what was promised and what was not fulfilled and what was broken
soon after a vote we had.
In just the time since we voted on the permanent trade deal, China
has only continued to back away from its commitments it made to the
WTO. Of course, we may never know the extent to which China is
violating its agreement since not all the funds that were promised to
monitor that made it into the budget. Meanwhile, China remains an
autocratic police state.
Did voting for permanent trade help Wang Changhuai? Wang was an auto
worker at the Changsha engine factory. After the crackdown in 1989,
Wang was tried and he was convicted of subversion. And what was his act
of subversion? He helped organize a free trade union. For that crime he
was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Mr. Speaker, Bernard Malamud once wrote ``the purpose of freedom is
to create it for others.'' While trade with China may generate wealth
for a few investors, it will not free brave men like Wang. Nor will it
provide economic security to workers and their families right here at
home.
We can undo today the mistakes of the past. I urge my colleagues to
think about this issue more fully, and I hope we will not repeat the
mistakes that we have made in the past in the future.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, can the Chair be kind enough to tell us the
time remaining on each side?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Florida has
6 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) has 10
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 18\1/2\
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has 8\1/2\
minutes remaining.
The order of closing is the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Brown), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane).
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Speaker, we have a vigorous debate on the House floor. There are
not a lot of Members here, but it is important. Again, China's
Government seems to me making things more difficult for itself. It
admits recent reports of missile technology aid to Pakistan and using
the Commerce Department's less-than-secure measure of granting defense
and computer companies permission to hire Chinese technicians to work
on sensitive export control technologies.
Again, earlier this month, The New York Times reported that the U.S.
intelligence agencies have told the Clinton administration and Congress
that China has continued to aid Pakistan in its efforts to build long-
range missiles that could carry nuclear weapons. And just yesterday,
The Washington Times reported that the Clinton administration has
allowed the hiring of hundreds of Chinese technicians to work on
military-related or dual use technologies.
China is stepping up its espionage presence in the U.S. through all
means possible and continues to expand its military complex with U.S.
trade dollars.
As said before, some see China as a strategic partner. My colleagues,
I see China as a potential adversary.
So I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to
close briefly and then I will let others refute if they want to.
Mr. Speaker, this is not going to be the last time that we debate our
economic and trade relations with China. I hope not at all.
Indeed, China PNTR as it passed the House has been molded so that we
will be assured of continuing surveillance, continuing oversight,
continuing pressure, and continuing debate.
The whole purpose of that effort as we shaped and reshaped it was to
make sure that we both engaged China and confronted it in terms of our
economic and trade relations. As a result, as we have discussed, and I
do not want to go into this in detail, we set up a commission that has
major responsibilities, that is created at the highest level and that
has jurisdiction in terms of human rights, including worker rights.
That commission is going to report back to this Congress with
provisions written in to assure that we will be discussing and debating
it. Indeed, I see these mechanisms, these instrumentalities as ways to
assure our greater involvement, not our lessened involvement, our
deeper engagement on a regular basis rather than the once-a-year
consideration.
We also have provided that there shall be major enhanced oversight in
monitoring responsibilities by the executive, including Commerce and
USTR and, as I expressed earlier, the hope that there will be full
appropriations for these purposes.
Also, we created within the legislation the strongest anti-surge
provision that has ever been introduced and eventually, I trust,
enacted into American law, a safeguard provision to make sure that if
there is a major deleterious effect of this growing, complex
relationship on American jobs in any particular sector there will be a
prompt answer from the United States of America.
It is an effort to both expand trade but to do so shaping it. It is
an effort that globalization will continue, in my judgment, there is no
way to slam the door on it, but to shape it, to wrestle with these
issues.
So I do think it is now important that we look to the future, that
all of us join together in realizing that the challenges are mainly the
challenges of the future and not of the past.
This is going to be a changing and difficult relationship. It is
going to have a lot of edges to it, including rough edges. We are going
to smooth them in an effective and constructive way, not by insulating
ourselves or isolating China. Neither is going to work.
What will work is an activist, internationalist kind of approach to
these problems that looks after the needs of American workers and
businesses in a world that is indeed changing.
[[Page H6413]]
So I urge strongly that we vote no on this resolution. I take it that
a no vote is indeed a yes vote to an activist effort to make sure that
as China and the U.S. evolves into a fuller relationship that it will
be one with our eyes open and one with our hands strong to make sure
that American workers land on their feet and that American businesses
as they work overseas conduct themselves in a way that we will be proud
of.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, last Saturday I went to Nicaragua with the National
Labor Committee and visited workers in a neighborhood called Tipitapa.
These workers work in a Taiwanese-owned company, Chentex. They sew blue
jeans. They make 21 cents for every pair of blue jeans that is sold for
$24 in Wal-Mart, in Kohl's, in K-Mart in the United States.
These workers asked for a 13-cents-per-pair-of-jeans raise.
Summarily, the union leaders and the workers were fired by this
company. These workers work about 60 or 70 hours a week and are paid
about $30 or $40 a week for their work. They do not share in the wealth
they create for their employer. They cannot buy the clothes, the
products that they make.
General Motors workers in Mexico cannot buy the automobiles they make
because they are not paid enough. Disney workers in Haiti cannot buy
the toys they make because they are not paid enough. Nike workers in
Indonesia cannot buy the shoes they make because they are not paid
enough. The textile workers in Nicaragua cannot buy the jeans they make
because they are not paid enough. And Nike workers in China cannot buy
any of the Nikes that they make, they cannot buy the shoes, because
they are not paid enough.
When I was in Nicaragua, I met a young woman named Kristina. She and
her husband live in a very run-down shack papered with boxes. Her
house, basically, is made out of shipping material, shipping crates
that she got from the factory where she works. Kristina leaves every
day at 6 o'clock in the morning, rides two city buses to get to work,
takes her 2-year-old to her mother's house, arrives at work at 7
o'clock, works until 7 o'clock at night, goes and picks her 2-year-old
daughter up, comes home, gets home about 9 o'clock. She leaves home at
6 she gets home at about 9 o'clock at night.
{time} 1445
Her husband has an even longer schedule. She does that 6 days a week.
She lives in substandard housing. Her daughter is suffering from
malnutrition. You can look at the ends of her hair and see the protein
deficiency that shows up in the discolored hair. She has no
opportunities in life. They are not sharing in the wealth they create.
They cannot buy the products they make.
Mr. Speaker, the tragedy of the global economy, the tragedy of how we
have let the global economy develop, is that in democratic developing
countries, investments leaving democratic developing countries like
India and go to authoritarian developing countries like China. American
business would prefer the workers in Indonesia because they cannot form
unions, they do not talk back, they do not pay them any kind of real
wages, they do not have worker safety laws, they do not have
environmental laws. American companies would rather invest in Indonesia
than democratic Taiwan. They would rather invest in China where they
can pay slave labor. Kathie Lee/Walmart pays as little as 3 and 5 and
10 cents an hour. They would rather invest in China where they can pay
slave labor wages instead of investing in democratic India.
Mr. Speaker, if we believe in this country, as we say we do, we
believe in free enterprise, we do, it creates dynamism, it creates a
dynamic, wealthy economy, we also believe in rules. We believe in
environmental laws, in food safety laws, in worker protection laws, in
minimum-wage laws. We believe in free enterprise. We believe in rules.
Mr. Speaker, in the global economy, we believe in trade, we believe
in openness, we believe in capitalism, but we need the same kind of
rules.
Vote ``yes'' on the resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Pelosi) who has been such a leader in this movement.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentlewoman from California
is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time and for his great leadership on this issue.
I listened intently to the debate as we have had this debate over and
over again; and I come to the floor in a little bit of a different
approach and, that is, the Congress has spoken, the House has spoken on
this issue. The House has placed the ball in China's court to comply
with our bilateral agreement. The House has spoken to the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Levin) and the gentleman from Nebraska's (Mr.
Bereuter) commission as the way to go to sort of calibrate the
relationship between trade and human rights. So I think what choice do
I have but to see this as an opportunity.
For 10 years many of us, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), for some of that and others, the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), have fought this fight about how
do we improve trade, improve human rights and stop the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction by China. Again, the PNTR vote has been
taken and a choice has been made. So in my optimistic spirit, I think
that maybe putting that aside now, we can really focus on the human
rights, proliferation and some of the trade issues in a way that does
not menace, for some, the passage of PNTR. So with the air cleared and
that decision made, hopefully we will all join together when we hear of
some of the things that are happening in China that are not in
furtherance of our national security, that is, promoting democratic
values, stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
growing our economy by promoting exports abroad.
The reason, Mr. Speaker, we are having this vote today is because
when we took the PNTR vote, and I am sure this was explained earlier,
but I think it bears repeating, when we took the PNTR vote earlier in
the year, it was to be effective when China became a member of the WTO.
China has not met all of the requirements, and indeed today there is a
wire story that says that China's bid for admission to WTO still faces
major hurdles and more time is needed before it gets the green light.
They said compilation of key documents essential to the process were
running into problems, with the United States and the European Union
sensing that China was trying to water down parts of the agreement it
has made with them.
At the same time, some developing countries, including India, were
insisting despite China's objections that their domestic interests
should have the same protection against floods of China's imports,
especially textiles, as the big powers had won. It is far from over
yet, said one key official. There is a lot more work still to do and a
lot of problems to resolve.
Let us hope they do resolve them. Then they would get PNTR, but only
then would they get PNTR. And some of the concerns that many of us had
on the vote, we were not saying they should not get it, we were saying
if and when they meet the criteria that is established, the standards
in our bilateral, then we should give them PNTR. Let us give them a
chance to take the initial steps. Well, they have not yet, but again
the Congress has spoken.
I just want to make a couple of points. Since our vote, China, in
terms of human rights, the day after the congressional vote on PNTR,
China continued to persecute individuals for their religious beliefs.
Reuters reported that a Chinese court sentenced a Roman Catholic priest
to 6 years in jail only for printing Bibles. The arrests are part of a
nationwide repression campaign on authorized religious activities.
Then on June 8, Chinese authorities arrested an operator of an
Internet Web site because it posted news about dissidents and the
government's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen
Square. The Web site is a U.S.-based Internet service provider. In
response to this, many people in the Internet world, which I come from,
[[Page H6414]]
have said, well, wait until the Internet democratizes China. When this
happened, they said, what can we say? If we say something, we will only
endanger these people further.
The gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Levin) commission is going to be
very important in addressing some of these issues. Then on June 13, the
Chinese police arrested members of the China Democracy Party which they
have outlawed who were sentenced to 3 years in a labor camp for only
asking for the release of a fellow dissident. Imagine that. Sentenced
to 3 years for requesting the release of a fellow dissident. Many
members of the China Democracy Party already serving long terms in
labor camps throughout China. Yesterday China's middle school teachers
were beaten and seriously injured by police for protesting a plan to
force them to resign and take tests to get their jobs back.
Mr. Speaker, Congress has spoken but our work is not done. Hopefully
we can work together to improve human rights, trade and to stop the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf).
(Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, there will be no real human rights monitoring
in China. The Russians were signatories of the Helsinki Final Accords
and Helsinki worked. The Chinese will never sign or participate in the
monitoring.
If every Member would go back and search your files, how many letters
have you all sent to China on behalf of the Catholic bishops, the 14
Catholic bishops that are in jail? How many of you have sent a letter
since we have passed PNTR?
I do not know why we are having a debate, but we are having it, and I
think the gentlewoman from California made the case, your side won. But
now have you done anything about the human rights concerns raised? Have
you done anything about the fact that the Dalai Lama cannot return to
Tibet and Tibet is still being plundered? Search your files. Have you
done anything with regard to Tibet? Or have you done anything, as the
gentlewoman talked about, to help house church leaders who have been
arrested since we passed PNTR? Have you done anything with regard to
them? Do you think Boeing has done anything with regard to the Catholic
priests? Do you think Boeing, the head of Boeing, has done anything
with regard to the evangelical house church leaders that have been
arrested? Do you think Boeing has done anything with regard to the
Catholic priest who went to jail for publishing the Bible? You all
probably know that Boeing has not done anything.
Secondly, I think we are in the same mood as we were during the 1930s
with regard to Winston Churchill and Nazi Germany. I think when I watch
what is taking place in the other body, Senator Thompson is trying to
do something and Members are urging him not to do anything because he
may upset this. In closing, your side won. I wish their commission
works. But in the meantime, not only those of us who have been against
PNTR but those of you who have been for PNTR have an obligation, have a
burden that every time you get a Dear Colleague letter from a Member
asking that something be done to help a Catholic priest in China, you
sign the letter. When there is something to be done with regard to a
Catholic bishop, you sign the letter. When there is something to do
with regard to Tibet and the Dalai Lama, you sign the letter. When
there is something to be done to stop the persecution of the Moslems in
the northwest portion of the country, you sign the letter. When we
raise concerns with regard to nuclear proliferation in China, you sign
the letter. If we can come together with regard to these issues of
human rights and religious persecution, perhaps we can make some
changes.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution disapproving
the extension of normal trade relations with China for another year.
Just two months ago we were on this floor debating the issue of
granting permanent normal trade relations with China. At that time I
and many of our colleagues provided evidence which showed that China
has done nothing to deserve permanent access to U.S. markets. The
evidence was strong in the areas of national security and human rights
showing that the Chinese government is a brutal regime which poses a
serious national security threat to the United States and which
continues to commit human rights abuses and persecutes its own people
for their religious beliefs.
In the past two months since the PNTR debate, the fears which many
expressed about China's behavior have become reality and have been
reported on by some of the major newspapers and leading news sources on
China.
Immediately after the PNTR vote, the Washington Post published a
lengthy article on the core planning document for the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. This document reportedly says that there should be a new focus
on Asia, in part because of the risk of a hostile relationship with
China.
The article, stated: ``Cautiously but steadily, the Pentagon is
looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict .
. .'' The article reports that a Pentagon official estimates that ``. .
. about two-thirds of the forward looking games staged by the Pentagon
over the last eight years have taken place partly or wholly in Asia.''
Aaron L. Friedberg, political scientist at Princeton University is
quoted on this subject, saying ``. . . however reluctantly, we are
beginning to face up to the fact that we are likely over the next few
years to be engaged in an ongoing military competition with China . . .
Indeed in certain respects, we already are.'' I submit this article for
the record.
China has exported weapons of mass destruction and missiles in
violation of treaty commitments. The director of the CIA has said that
China remains a ``key supplier'' of these weapons to Pakistan, Iran,
and North Korea. Other reports indicate China has passed on similar
weapons and technology to Libya and Syria. If one of these countries is
involved in a conflict, it is very possible that our men and women in
uniform could be called into harm's way. These weapons of mass
destruction could then be targeted against American troops.
I am concerned about the alliance that seems to be forming between
China and Russia against the U.S. China is purchasing as many weapons
from Russia as it can. I am concerned with recent reports in the Taiwan
press that Russia will dispatch its Pacific Fleet to check the route of
the U.S. Seventh Fleet if the U.S. makes any movement toward Taiwan
during a China-Taiwan conflict. I also submit this article for the
record. Also, reports indicate that China has purchased advanced naval
vessels and top of the line anti-ship missiles from the Russians that
specifically are meant to be used against U.S. aircraft carriers.
The Chinese government has continued to persecute people because of
their faith. Compass Direct, a news service that covers global
religious freedom, reports that the government has cracked down on the
House Church in Anhui province with new restrictions entailing all new
house churches that are unregistered with the government are outlawed;
all unregistered meetings and Bible training classes are labeled as
illegal activities; and well over one hundred House church believers
have been arrested in the past few months.
Compass Direct also reports that:
Ten house church leaders were arrested in May in Guangdong province.
Two Beijing House church leaders have reportedly received 1\1/2\ year
sentences in prison labor camps for organizing ``illegal religious
meetings''.
An underground Catholic priest near Wenzhou Province, Father Jiang
Sunian, was reportedly given a six-year jail sentence on May 25 for
printing Bibles and other religious literature without official
permission.
The head of China's Religious Affairs Bureau, recently said that the
Communist Party will increase the Party's control of religious affairs
and ``redirect the religions toward the adaptation of the socialist
society.''
The U.S. Committee on International Religious Freedom has recently
stated that the Chinese government has increased its persecution of the
Muslim Uighurs in Northwest China. I submit the Commission's statement
for the record.
Tibetan Buddhists continue to be persecuted and imprisoned by the
Chinese communist government.
In the PNTR debate, we said China's military engages in organ
trafficking. On June 15 the International Herald Tribune published an
article on the Chinese government's role in the organ trafficking of
prisoners. I submit this article for the record. The article says:
``The day before convicts are executed--usually in batches--a group
of patients in the hospital are told to expect the operation the next
day . . . The night before their execution, 18 convicts were shown on a
Chinese television program, their crimes announced to the public.
Wilson Yeo saw the broadcast from his hospital bed in China and knew
that one of
[[Page H6415]]
the men scheduled to die would provide him with the kidney he so badly
needed.''
``China's preferred method of capital punishment, a bullet to the
back of the head, is conducive to transplants because it does not
contaminate the prisoner's organs with poisonous chemicals, as lethal
injections do, or directly effect the circulatory system, as would a
bullet through the heart.
``. . . kidneys are essentially handed out to the highest bidders .
. .''
A Chinese official from the Health Ministry was quoted saying that
the trafficking of executed prisoner's organs ``. . . is put under
stringent state control and must go through standard procedures.''
In closing, since PNTR has passed, there is even more evidence about
China's gross human rights violations, religious persecution, and
information regarding the national security threat that China poses to
the U.S.
As I said in my statement for the record during the PNTR debate, the
U.S. is at a crossroads in its relationship with China. Wishful
thinking and ignoring all of the evidence about China's human rights
violations, religious persecution, and national security threat do not
change the reality of the regime in China.
We need to learn what history teaches us about leadership. Leadership
is not about seeing what we wish to see. Leadership is not about
closing our eyes to the threats before us. Leadership is about clearly,
lucidly, and forcefully addressing facts and truth and taking
appropriate action.
The American way of life, our freedom can only be preserved by
vigilance. Vigilance requires us to look at the situation in China
today and conclude that the Chinese regime should not have received
permanent trade relations with the U.S. until the questions of national
security were adequately addressed and until there was a significant
improvement in China's human rights record.
The same applies to this debate on extending approval of normal trade
relations with China. Giving China PNTR was the wrong thing to do and
for the same reasons, which are buttressed by even more evidence today,
the U.S. should disapprove extension of China normal trade relations.
[From the Washington Post, May 26, 2000]
For Pentagon, Asia Moving to Forefront
(By Thomas E. Ricks)
When Pentagon officials first sat down last year to update
the core planning document of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they
listed China as a potential future adversary, a momentous
change from the last decade of the Cold War.
But when the final version of the document, titled ``Joint
Vision 2020,'' is released next week, it will be far more
discreet. Rather than explicitly pointing at China, it simply
will warn of the possible rise of an unidentified ``peer
competitor.''
The Joint Chiefs' wrestling with how to think about China--
and how open to be about that effort--captures in a nutshell
the U.S. military's quiet shift away from its traditional
focus on Europe. Cautiously but steadily, the Pentagon is
looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military
conflict, or at least competition.
This new orientation is reflected in many small but
significant changes: more attack submarines assigned to the
Pacific, more war games and strategic studies centered on
Asia, more diplomacy aimed at reconfiguring the U.S. military
presence in the area.
It is a trend that carries huge implications for the shape
of the armed services. It also carries huge stakes for U.S.
foreign policy. Some specialists warn that as the United
States thinks about a rising China, it ought to remember the
mistakes Britain made in dealing with Germany in the years
before World War I.
The new U.S. military interest in Asia also reverses a Cold
War trend under which the Pentagon once planned by the year
2000 to have just ``a minimal military presence'' in Japan,
recalls retired Army Gen. Robert W. RisCassi, a former U.S.
commander in South Korea.
Two possibilities are driving this new focus. The first is
a chance of peace in Korea; the second is the risk of a
hostile relationship with China.
Although much of the current discussion in Washington is
about a possible military threat from North Korea, for
military planners the real question lies further ahead: What
to do after a Korean rapprochement? In this view, South Korea
already has won its economic and ideological struggle with
North Korea, and all that really remains is to negotiate
terms for peace.
According to one Defense Department official, William S.
Cohen's fist question to policy officials when he became
defense secretary in 1997 was: How can we change the
assumption that U.S. troops will be withdrawn after peace
comes to the Korean peninsula? Next month's first-ever summit
between the leaders of North and South Korea puts a sharper
edge on this issue.
In the longer run, many American policymakers expect China
to emerge sooner or later as a great power with significant
influence over the rest of Asia. That, along with a spate of
belligerent statements about Taiwan from Chinese officials
this spring, has helped focus the attention of top
policymakers on China's possible military ambitions. ``The
Chinese saber-rattling has gotten people's attention, there's
no question of that,'' said Abram Shulsky, a China expert at
the Rand Corp.
the buzzword is china
Between tensions over Taiwan and this week's House vote to
normalize trade relations with China, ``China is the new
Beltway buzzword,'' observed Dov S. Zakheim, a former
Pentagon official who is an adviser on defense policy to
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
To be sure, large parts of the U.S. military remain
``Eurocentric,'' especially much of the Army. The shift is
being felt most among policymakers and military planners--
that is, officials charged with thinking about the future--
and least among front-line units. Nor is it a change that the
Pentagon is proclaiming from the rooftops. Defense Department
officials see little value in being explicit about the shift
in U.S. attention, which could worry old allies in Europe and
antagonize China.
Even so, military experts point to changes on a variety of
fronts. For example, over the last several years, there has
been an unannounced shift in the Navy's deployment of attack
submarines, which in the post-Cold War world have been used
as intelligence assets--to intercept communications, monitor
ship movements and clandestinely insert commandos--and also
as front-line platforms for launching Tomahawk cruise
missiles against Iraq, Serbia and other targets. Just a few
years ago, the Navy kept 60 percent of its attack boats in
the Atlantic. Now, says a senior Navy submariner, it
has shifted to a 5-50 split between the Atlantic and
Pacific fleets, and before long the Pacific may get the
majority.
But so far the focus on Asia is mostly conceptual, not
physical. It is now a common assumption among national
security thinkers that the area from Baghdad to Tokyo will be
the main location of U.S. military competition for the next
several decades. ``The focus of great power competition is
likely to shift from Europe to Asia,'' said Andrew
Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments, a small but influential Washington
think tank. James Bodner, the principal deputy undersecretary
of defense for policy, added that, ``The center of gravity of
the world economy has shifted to Asia, and U.S. interests
flow with that.''
When Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of the most thoughtful
senior officers in the military, met with the Army Science
Board earlier this spring, he commented off-handedly that
America's ``long-standing Europe-centric focus'' probably
would shift in coming decades as policymakers ``pay more
attention to the Pacific Rim, and especially to China.'' This
is partly because of trade and economics, he indicated, and
partly because of the changing ethnic makeup of the U.S.
population. (California is enormously important in U.S.
domestic politics, explains one Asia expert at the Pentagon,
and Asian Americans are increasingly influential in that
state's elections, which can make or break presidential
candidates.)
Just 10 years ago, said Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, Jr.,
commandant of the Army War College, roughly 90 percent of
U.S. military thinking about future warfare centered on head-
on clashes of armies in Europe. ``Today,'' he said, ``it's
probably 50-50, or even more'' tilted toward warfare using
characteristic Asian tactics, such as deception and
indirection.
war gaming
The U.S. military's favorite way of testing its assumptions
and ideas is to run a war game. Increasingly, the major games
played by the Pentagon--except for the Army--take place in
Asia, on an arc from Teheran to Tokyo. The games are used to
ask how the U.S. military might respond to some of the
biggest questions it faces: Will Iran go nuclear--or become
more aggressive with an array of hard-to-stop cruise
missiles? Will Pakistan and India engage in nuclear war--or,
perhaps even worse, will Pakistan break up, with its nuclear
weapons falling into the hands of Afghan mujaheddin? Will
Indonesia fall apart? Will North Korea collapse peacefully?
And what may be the biggest question of all: Will the United
States and China avoid military confrontation? All in all,
estimates one Pentagon official, about two-thirds of the
forward-looking games staged by the Pentagon over the last
eight years have taken place partly or wholly in Asia.
Last year, the Air Force's biggest annual war game looked
at the Mideast and Korea. This summer's game, ``Global
Engagement 5,'' to be played over more than a week at Maxwell
Air Force Base in Alabama, will posit ``a rising large East
Asian nation'' that is attempting to wrest control of
Siberia, with all its oil and other natural resources, from a
weak Russia. At one point, the United States winds up basing
warplanes in Siberia to defend Russian interests.
Because of the sensitivity of talking about fighting China,
``What everybody's trying to do is come up with games that
are kind of China, but not china by name,'' said an Air Force
strategist.
``I think that, however reluctantly, we are beginning to
face up to the fact that we are likely over the next few
years to be engaged in an ongoing military competition with
China,'' noted Princeton political scientist Aaron L.
Friedberg. ``Indeed, in certain respects, we already are.''
[[Page H6416]]
twin efforts
The new attention to Asia also is reflected in two long-
running, military-diplomatic efforts.
The first is a drive to renegotiate the U.S. military
presence in northeast Asia. This is aimed mainly at ensuring
that American forces still will be welcome in South Korea and
Japan if the North Korean threat disappears. To that end, the
U.S. military will be instructed to act less like post-World
War II occupation forces and more like guests or partners.
Pentagon experts on Japan and Korea say they expect that
``status of forces agreements'' gradually will be diluted, so
that local authorities will gain more jurisdiction over U.S.
military personnel in criminal cases. In addition, they
predict that U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea will be
jointly operated in the future by American and local forces,
perhaps even with a local officer in command.
At Kadena Air Force Base on the southern Japanese island of
Okinawa, for example, the U.S. military has started a
program, called ``Base Without Fences,'' under which the
governor has been invited to speak on the post, local
residents are taken on bus tours of the base that include a
stop at a memorial to Japan's World War II military, and
local reporters have been given far more access to U.S.
military officials.
``We don't have to stay in our foxhole,'' said Air Force
Brig. Gen. James B. Smith, who devised the more open
approach. ``To guarantee a lasting presence, there needs to
be a private and public acknowledgment of the mutual benefit
of our presence.''
Behind all this lies a quiet recognition that Japan may no
longer unquestioningly follow the U.S. lead in the region. A
recent classified national intelligence estimate concluded
that Japan has several strategic options available, among
them seeking a separate accommodation with China, Pentagon
officials disclosed. ``Japan isn't Richard Gere in `An
Officer and a Gentleman,' '' one official said. ``That is,
unlike him, it does have somewhere else to go.''
In the long term, this official added, a key goal of U.S.
politico-military policy is to ensure that when Japan
reemerges as a great power, it behaves itself in Asia, unlike
the last time around, in the 1930s, when it launched a
campaign of vicious military conquest.
southeast asia redux
The second major diplomatic move is the negotiation of the
U.S. military's reentry in Southeast Asia, 25 years after the
end of the Vietnam War and almost 10 years after the United
States withdrew from its bases in the Philippines. After
settling on a Visiting Forces Agreement last year, the United
States and the Philippines recently staged their first joint
military exercise in years, ``Balikatan 2000.''
The revamped U.S. military relationship with the
Philippines, argues one general, may be a model for the
region. Instead of building ``Little America'' bases with
bowling alleys and Burger Kings that are off-limits to the
locals, U.S. forces will conduct frequent joint exercises to
train Americans and Filipinos to operate together in
everything from disaster relief to full-scale combat. The
key, he said, isn't permanent bases but occasional access to
facilities and the ability to work with local troops.
Likewise, the United States has broadened its military
contacts with Australia, putting 10,0000 troops into the
Queensland region a year ago for joint exercises. And this
year, for the first time, Singapore's military is
participating in ``Cobra Gold,'' the annual U.S.-Thai
exercise. Singapore also is building a new pier specifically
to meet the docking requirements of a nuclear-powered U.S.
aircraft carrier. The U.S. military even has dipped a
cautious toe back into Vietnam, with Cohen this spring
becoming the first defense secretary since Melvin R. Laird to
visit that nation.
The implications of this change already are stirring
concern in Europe. In the March issue of Proceedings, the
professional journal of the U.S. Navy, Cmdr. Michele
Consentino, an Italian navy officer, fretted about the
American focus on the Far East and about ``dangerous gaps''
emerging in the U.S. military presence in the Mediterranean.
where the generals are
If the U.S. military firmly concludes that its major
missions are likely to take place in Asia, it may have to
overhaul the way it is organized, equipped and even led.
``Most U.S. military assets are in Europe, where there are no
foreseeable conflicts threatening vital U.S. interests,''
said ``Asia 2025,'' a Pentagon study conducted last summer.
``The threats are in Asia,'' it warned.
This study, recently read by Cohen, pointedly noted that
U.S. military planning remains ``heavily focused on Europe,''
that there are four times as many generals and admirals
assigned to Europe as to Asia, and that about 85 percent of
military officers studying foreign languages are still
learning European tongues.
``Since I've been here, we've tried to put more emphasis on
our position in the Pacific,'' Cohen said in an interview as
he flew home from his most recent trip to Asia. This isn't,
he added, ``a zero-sum game, to ignore Europe, but
recognizing that the [economic] potential in Asia is
enormous''--especially, he said, if the United States is
willing to help maintain stability in the region.
tyranny of distance
Talk to a U.S. military planner about the Pacific theater,
and invariably the phrase ``the tyranny of distance'' pops
up. Hawaii may seem to many Americans to be well out in the
Pacific, but it is another 5,000 miles from there to
Shanghai. All told, it is about twice as far from San Diego
to China as it is from New York to Europe. Cohen noted that
the military's new focus on Asia means, ``We're going to
want more C-17s'' (military cargo planes) as well as
``more strategic airlift'' and ``more strategic sealift.''
Other experts say that barely scratches the surface of the
revamping that Asian operations might require. The Air Force,
they say, would need more long-range bombers and refuelers--
and probably fewer short-range fighters such as the hot new
F-22, designed during the Cold War for dogfights in the
relatively narrow confines of Central Europe. ``We are still
thinking about aircraft design as if it were for the border
of Germany,'' argues James G. Roche, head of Northrop Grumman
Corp.'s electronic sensors unit and a participant in last
year's Pentagon study of Asia's future. ``Asia is a much
bigger area than Europe, so planes need longer `legs.' ''
Similarly, the Navy would need more ships that could
operate at long distances. It might even need different types
of warships. For example, the Pentagon study noted, today's
ships aren't ``stealthy''--built to evade radar--and may
become increasingly vulnerable as more nations acquire
precision-guided missiles.
Also, the Navy may be called on to execute missions in
places where it has not operated for half a century. If the
multi-island nation of Indonesia falls apart, the Pentagon
study suggested, then the Navy may be called upon to keep
open the crucial Strait of Malacca, through which passes much
of the oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Japan and the
rest of East Asia.
The big loser among the armed forces likely would be the
Army, whose strategic relevancy already is being questioned
as it struggles to deploy its forces more quickly. ``At its
most basic level, the rise of Asia means a rise of emphasis
on naval, air and space power at the expense of ground
forces,'' said Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies
at Johns Hopkins University.
In a few years, Pentagon insiders predict, the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be from the Navy or Air Force,
following 12 years in which Army officers--Generals Colin L.
Powell, John Shalikashvili and Henry H. Shelton--have been
the top officers in the military. Perhaps even more
significantly, they foresee the Air Force taking away from
the Navy at least temporarily the position of ``CINCPAC,''
the commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. There
already is talk within the Air Force of basing parts of an
``Air Expeditionary Force'' in Guam, where B-2 stealth
bombers have been sent in the past in response to tensions
with North Korea.
parallel with past
If the implications for the U.S. military of a new focus on
Asia are huge, so too are the risks. Some academics and
Pentagon intellectuals see a parallel between the U.S. effort
to manage the rise of China as a great power and the British
failure to accommodate or divert the ambitions of a newly
unified Germany in the late 19th century. That effort ended
in World War I, which slaughtered a generation of British
youth and marked the beginning of British imperial decline.
If Sino-American antagonism grows, some strategists warn,
national missile defense may play the role that Britain's
development of the battleship Dreadnought played a century
ago--a superweapon that upset the balance by making Germany's
arsenal strategically irrelevant. Chinese officials have said
they believe the U.S. plan for missile defense is aimed at
negating their relatively small force of about 20
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
If the United States actually builds a workable antimissile
system, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
predicts, ``the effect of that would be immediately felt by
the Chinese nuclear forces and [would] presumably precipitate
a buildup.'' That in turn could provoke India to beef up its
own nuclear forces, a move that would threaten Pakistan. A
Chinese buildup also could make Japan feel that it needed to
build up its own military.
Indian officials already are quietly telling Pentagon
officials that the rise of China will make the United States
and India natural allies. India also is feeling its oats
militarily. The Hindustan Times recently reported that the
Indian navy plans to reach far eastward this year to hold
submarine and aircraft exercises in the South China Sea, a
move sure to tweak Beijing.
Some analysts believe that the hidden agenda of the U.S.
military is to use the rise of Asia as a way to shore up the
Pentagon budget, which now consumes about 3 percent of the
gross domestic product, compared to 5.6 percent at the end of
the Cold War in 1989. ``If the military grabs onto this in
order to get more money, that's scary,'' said retired Air
Force Col. Sam Gardiner, who frequently conducts war games
for the military.
Indeed, Cohen is already making the point that operating in
Asia is expensive. He said it is clear that America will have
to maintain ``forward'' forces in Asia. And that, he argued,
will require a bigger defense budget.
``There's a price to pay for what we're doing,'' Cohen
concluded. ``The question we're going to have to face in the
coming years is, are we willing to pay up?''
[[Page H6417]]
An Eye on Asia
U.S. forces dedicated to the Pacific region: U.S. Army
Pacific 60,000 soldiers and civilians (two divisions and one
brigade); U.S. Pacific Fleet 130,000 sailors and civilians
(170 ships); Pacific Air Forces 40,000 airmen and civilians
(380 aircraft in nine wings); Marine Forces Pacific 70,000
Marines and civilians (two expeditionary forces).
On Foreign Shores
Major U.S. deployments in Asia include:
U.S. Forces Japan: 47,000 personnel ashore and 12,000
afloat at 90 locations.
U.S. Forces Korea: 37,500 personnel at 85 installations.
training Grounds
The Pacific Command participates in dozens of joint
exercises with allied countries each year, including:
1. Cobra Gold: The U.S.-Thai exercise is expanding to
include Singapore.
2. Foal Eagle: Brings together U.S. and South Korean troops
on the Korean peninsula.
3. Crocodile: A training exercise with Australia at
Shoalwater Bay.
4. Rim of the Pacific: Participants include the U.S.,
Australia, Japan and South Korea (pictured above).
____
[From Hong Kong Sing Tao Jih Pao, July 8, 2000]
Russian Navy Reportedly Instructed To Stop US Involvement in Taiwan
Strait
(By Reporter Li Nien-ting)
Taiwan's media have reported that after the Sino-Russian
summit a few days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave
a special instruction to the Russian military that in case
the Taiwan situation deteriorates and the US military
attempts to become involved in the situation, Russia will
dispatch its Pacific Fleet to check the route of the Seventh
Fleet of the US Navy, to keep the latter far away from the
Taiwan Strait. This will be the embryonic form of Sino-
Russian military cooperation in defense.
Jiang Zemin and Putin, the heads of state of China and
Russia, had an in-depth exchange of views before the five-
nation summit a few days ago. The two countries reached a
consensus on jointly opposing the US global missile defense
system (TMD) [as published; acronym given in English] and
made commitments on Sino-Russian military cooperation in
defense.
Relevant analysis held that military cooperation and
antagonism seems to have become the hottest topic for
discussion in the post-Cold-War period. Following the US
attempt to develop the national missile defense system and
TMD, China has found the US move to join hands with the weak
to deal with the strong a knotty problem. Having failed to
obtain any result through severe denunciation the Beijing
authorities have decided to work with Russia to contend with
the United States. Since Putin was elected Russian president,
the cooperation between the two countries has tended to be
further strengthened. Their military cooperation has caused
the two countries to be on the same front against the United
States.
A Military Cooperation Plan Involving $20 Billion
Taiwan media have quoted information from a mainland
official source as saying: In order to strengthen Russia's
strategic cooperative partnership with China, Russian
President Putin gave a special instruction to the high-level
officers of the Russian military a few days ago that in case
the US military involves itself in the Taiwan Strait
situation, Russia will dispatch its Pacific Fleet to cut off
the route of the US fleet in order to keep the latter far
away from the Taiwan Strait.
Regarding the military alliance between China and Russia,
the media of the West have commented that the strategic
cooperative partnership between China and Russia has entirely
been established on the basis of the fundamental interests of
the national security of the two countries. Therefore, on the
issues of Chechnya and Taiwan, China and Russia not only
should fully support each other's sovereignty, territorial
integrity, and unity, but also should join hands in solving
the other side's conflicts over sovereignty and territorial
integrity.
It has been disclosed that there is a 2000-2004 military
cooperation plan between China and Russia that involves as
much as $20 billion. China will purchase from Russia high-
tech equipment for the navy and the air force, or cooperate
with Russia to develop and produce such equipment. It is
believed that the plan is being implemented.
____
[From Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao, July 6, 00]
[Special Article on Cooperation Among PRC, Russia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan]
(By Mao Chieh)
``That historical issues left over in the past several
hundred years have been mostly solved over the past five
years represents a great achievement of the ``Shanghai Five''
meeting. Taking a step back and assuming crisis in the Taiwan
Strait will further escalate, the mainland will be able to
concentrate all its efforts to handle the cross-strait issue
since its worries about its backyard have been greatly
reduced.''
The heads of state of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Hyrgystan,
and Tajikistan gather today (6 July) in Dushanbe, capital of
Tajikistan, to attend the fifth meeting of the ``Shanghai
Five.'' Due to the presence of the new Russian President
Putin and to the first attendance of Uzbekistan as an
observer, the Dushanbe summit meeting has attracted
particular attention.
``Of the 20-point Dushanbe Statement signed today by the
five countries' heads of state, the main points of the
meeting can be summed up in four,'' remarked Pan Guang,
director of Shanghai Research Center on international issues,
when interviewed by this paper's reporter.
____
Chinese Persecution of Uighur Muslims May Be Increasing, Commission
Says
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
today issued a statement deploring what appears to be
increasing persecution of Uighur Muslims in China's Xinjiang
region and called for the U.S. government to raise the issue
directly with China and in international organizations.
Following is the text of the statement:
``In the Commission's May 1 Annual Report to the
Administration and Congress, and in testimony before
Congress, since that date, we have called attention to the
serious deterioration of religious freedom in China during
the past year.
``Since last summer, the authorities have launched a
nationwide crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement,
sentencing leaders to long prison terms and detaining more
than 35,000 practitioners, a few of whom have been sent to
mental institutions, have been beaten to death, or have died
suddenly while in police custody. Catholic and Protestant
underground ``house churches'' are suffering increased
repression, including the arrests of priests and pastors, one
of whom was found dead in the street soon afterwards. The
repression of Tibetan Buddhists has expanded, with a top
religious leader, the Karmapa Lama, recently fleeing to India
in January.
``The increase in religious persecution has touched another
group, less known in the West--the 8 million Muslim Uighurs,
a Turkic people living in western China's Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region. In the face of Han Chinese mass migration
into traditionally Uighur areas, Islamic institutions have
become an important medium through which Uighurs attempt to
preserve their history and culture.
``Verifiable information from the region is hard to come
by, largely because foreign diplomats, journalists, and human
rights monitors are generally barred from traveling there.
But in recent years tensions in Xinjiang and reports of
sporadic violence against the government have increased.
While the government blames ``small numbers'' of
``separatists'' for the violence, Islamic institutions and
prominent individuals in the Muslim community have become the
target of repressive, often brutal measures by Chinese
authorities unwilling or unable to differentiate between
religious exercise or ethnic identify and ``separatist''
aspirations. Thousands have been detained, including many
religious leaders. Convictions and executions of so-called
``splittists'' are common, often reportedly on little
evidence and with no regard for due process of law. Indeed,
residents of Xinjiang region are the only Chinese citizens
who are subject to capital punishment for political crimes.
``Last August, the Chinese authorities stepped up their
crackdown with the arrest of a prominent Uighur
businesswoman, Rebiya Kadeer. Ms. Kadeer was arrested last
Aug. 11 as she was on her way to a private dinner in Urumqi
with two staff members from the U.S. Congressional Research
Service. She was last convicted in a show trial for ``harming
national security'' and sentenced to 8 years in prison. The
evidence consisted of a number of Chinese newspaper articles
she had passed on to her husband in the U.S., who commented
on them over Radio Free Asia. Kadeer is reported to be in
poor health and in need of medical help as a result of brutal
treatment meted out to her in prison.
``In recent days a major Xinjiang newspaper announced the
July 6 execution of three accused Uighur separatists by
firing squad immediately after their public sentencing on
charges of ``splitting the country.'' This follows upon
similar executions of five Uighurs immediately after
sentencing in a June trial, with two others sentenced to life
in prison and the others receiving jail terms ranging from 17
to 20 years.
``Several weeks ago, the House voted to grant China
Permanent Normal Trade Relations status (PNTR). During the
debate, PNTR supporters argued that the fruits of engagement
with China would be increased respect for the rule of law and
international norms of behavior with regard to human rights.
As Beijing's violations of religious freedom continue
unabated, if not at a stepped up pace, PNTR supporters have a
moral obligation to speak out and let the Chinese government
know that these abuses are unacceptable. ``No one expected
improvement overnight, but certainly things shouldn't have
deteriorated overnight,'' said Commission Chairman Elliott
Abrams.
``The Commission reiterates its recommendation of May 1
that the U.S. government raise the profile of conditions in
Xinjiang by addressing religious-freedom and human rights
concerns in bilateral talks, by increasing the number of
education exchange opportunities available to Uighurs, and by
increasing radio broadcasts in the Uighur language into
Xinjiang. The Commission further recommends that the U.S.
move immediately to take up the issue in all appropriate
international organizations. The
[[Page H6418]]
State Department should demand both the humanitarian release
of Rebiya Kadeer from prison, an immediate end to summary
executions of Uighur ``separatists,'' and free access to
Xinjiang for foreign journalist and human rights monitors.
Finally, the Commission urges the U.S. Senate to consider the
plight of the Uighurs and the state of religious freedom in
China as it considers whether to grant Beijing PNTR status.''
____
[From the International Herald Tribune, June 15, 2000]
An Execution for a Kidney
China Supplies Convicts' Organs to Malaysians
(By Thomas Fuller)
Malacca, Malaysia.--The night before their execution, 18
convicts were shown on a Chinese television program, their
crimes announced to the public. Wilson Yeo saw the broadcast
from his hospital bed in China and knew that one of the men
scheduled to die would provide him with the kidney he so
badly needed.
Mr. Yeo, 40, a Malaysian who manages the local branch of a
lottery company here, says he never learned the name of the
prisoner whose kidney is now implanted on his right side. He
knows only what the surgeon told him: The executed man was 19
years old and sentenced to die for drug trafficking.
``I knew that I would be getting a young kidney,'' Mr. Yeo
says now, one year after his successful transplant. ``That
was very important for me.''
Over the past few years at least a dozen residents of this
small Malaysian city have traveled to a provincial hospital
in Chongqing, China, where they paid for what they could not
get in Malaysia: functioning kidneys to prolong their lives.
They went to China, a place most of them barely knew, with
at least $10,000 in cash. They encountered a medical culture
where kidneys were given to those with money and a doctor
could stop treatment if a patient didn't pay up. Surgeons
advised them to wait until a major holiday, when authorities
traditionally execute the most prisoners.
China's preferred method of capital punishment, a bullet to
the back of the head, is conducive to transplants because it
does not contaminate the prisoners' organs with poisonous
chemicals, as lethal injections do, or directly affect the
circulatory system, as would a bullet through the heart.
More than 1,000 Malaysians have had kidney transplants in
China, according to an estimate by Dr. S.Y. Tan, one of
Malaysia's leading kidney specialists. Many patients go after
giving up hope of finding an organ donor in Malaysia, where
the average waiting period for a transplant is 16 years.
Interviews with patients who underwent the operation in
China reveal how the market for Chinese kidneys has blossomed
here--to the point where patients from Malacca negotiated a
special price with Chinese doctors.
In 1998, two doctors from the Third Affiliated Hospital, a
military-run complex in Chongqing, came to Malacca and spoke
at the local chapter of the Lions Club about their
procedures. Kidney patients worked out a deal with the
doctors: Residents of Malacca would be charged $10,000 for
the procedure instead of the $12,000 paid by other
foreigners.
It goes without saying that the kidney transplants these
doctors perform are highly controversial. The Transportation
Society, a leading international medical forum based in
Montreal, has banned the use of organs from convicted
criminals. Human rights groups call the practice barbaric.
But patients here who have undergone the operation in China
say they were too desperate at the time to consider the
ethical consequences.
Today they are simply happy to be alive. The trip to
Chongqing offered them an escape from the dialysis machines,
blood transfusions, dizziness and frequent bouts of vomiting.
And why, they ask, should healthy organs be put to waste if
they can save lives?
``Ethics are only a game for those people who are not
sick,'' says Tan Dau Chin, a paramedic who has spent his
career working with dialysis patients in Malacca. ``Let me
put it this way: What if this happened to you?''
Simon Leong, 35, a Malaccan who underwent a successful
operation two years ago in Chongqing, says the principle of
buying an organ is ``wrong.''
``But I was thinking, I have two sons. Who's going to
provide for them?''
Corrine Yong, 54, who returned from Chongqing two months
ago after a successful operation, was told that if she did
not receive a transplant she would probably not live much
longer.
``I didn't have a choice,'' she says of her decision to go
to China.
For kidney patients in Malaysia the chances of obtaining a
transplant from a local donor are slim. Despite an extremely
high death rate on Malaysian roads--in a country of 22
million people, an average of 16 people are killed every day
in traffic accidents--the organ donation system is
woefully undeveloped.
Kidneys were transplanted from just eight donors last year.
Thousands of people are on the official waiting list.
Dr. Tan, the Malaysian kidney specialist, says the small
number of donors in Malaysia is partly due to religious and
cultural taboos.
Malaysian Muslim families in particular are reluctant to
allow organs to be removed before burial, although this is
not the case in some other Muslim countries, such as Saudi
Arabia, which has a relatively high number of donors.
Organ donation has always been an uncomfortable issue. The
terminology is euphemistic and macabre: Doctors speak of
``harvesting'' organs from patients who are brain-dead, but
whose hearts are still beating.
And when the issue of executed prisoners comes into play,
transplants become politically explosive.
``It is well known that the death penalty is often meted
out in China for things that most people in Western countries
would not regard as capital crimes,'' said Roy Calne, a
professor of surgery at both Cambridge University and the
National University of Singapore.
Using organs from executed prisoners is not only ethically
wrong, he says, but discourages potential donors to step
forward in China: ``If the perception of the public in China
is that there's no shortage of organs you're not likely to
get any enthusiasm for a donation program.''
It is impossible to know exactly how many Asians travel to
China for organ transplants. But data informally collected
from doctors in at least three countries suggest the numbers
are in the hundreds every year.
Also impossible to confirm is whether all parties in China
receive organs from executed prisoners and not other donors.
But patients interviewed for this article say doctors in
China make no secret of where the organ comes from. The day
before convicts are executed--usually in batches--a group of
patients in the hospital are told to expect the operation the
next day.
Melvin Teh, 40, a Malacca businessman who received a kidney
transplant from a hospital in Guangzhou two years ago, says
doctors did not offer the names of the prisoners. ``They just
tell you it was a convict,'' he said. ``They don't tell you
what he did.''
Mrs. Yong says doctors told her that the donors were all
``young men'' who had committed ``serious, violent'' crimes.
Chinese officials have admitted that organs are
occasionally taken from convicts, but deny that the practice
is widespread.
``It is rare in China to use the bodies of executed
convicts or organs from an executed convict,'' an official
from the Health Ministry was quoted as saying in the China
Daily in 1998. ``If it is done, it is put under stringent
state control and must go through standard procedures.''
That view does not jibe with the stories that patients from
Malacca tell, where kidneys are essentially handed out to the
highest bidders, often foreigners.
Mr. Leong, the Chongqing patient, and his wife, Karen Soh,
who accompanied him to China, say money was paramount for the
surgeons involved in the operation. They recounted how
another Malaysian kidney transplant patient who suffered
complications while in Chongqing had run out of cash.
``They stopped the medication for one day,'' Mrs. Soh said,
referring to the anti-rejection drugs. The patient was
already very sick and eventually died of infection upon her
return to Malaysis, according to Mrs. Soh.
Patients say they are advised by friends who have already
undergone a transplant to bring the surgeons gifts. Mrs.
Young brought a pewter teapot and picture frame. Ms. Soh and
her husband brought a bottle of Martell cognac, a carton of
555 brand cigarettes and a bottle of perfume for the chief
surgeon's wife.
``They call it `starting off on the right foot' '' Mrs. Soh
said.
After the operation was complete, the couple gave two of
the doctors ``red packets'' filled with cash: 3,000 yuan
($360) for the chief surgeon, and 2,000 yuan for his
assistant. Other patients also ``tipped,'' although the
amounts varied.
It might be tempting to see the market for Chinese organs
as part of the more general links that overseas Chinese have
with the mainland.
Many of the patients are indeed ethnically Chinese and come
from countries--Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand--with either links
to the mainland or large ethnic Chinese populations.
Yet if the experience of Malaysian patients in any
indication, the trip to China provides a severe culture
shock. Patients recalled unsanitary conditions, and for those
who did not speak Mandarin the experience was harrowing.
Mr. Leong, who speaks little Mandarin, was helped by his
wife who wrote out a list of phrases for her husband to
memorize. The list included: ``I'm feeling pain!'' ``I'm
thirsty.'' ``Can you turn me over?'' Mr. Leong would simply
say the number that corresponded to his complaint and the
nurse would check the list.
But more difficult than communicating is paying for the
transplant. For the Leongs it involved pooling savings from
family members and appealing for funds through Chinese-
language newspapers. The cost of an operation amounts to
several years' salary for many Malaysians.
Yet despite financial problems and cultural shock, all four
patients interviewed for this article said they had no
regrets.
Mr. Yeo enjoys a life of relative normalcy, maintaining a
regular work schedule and jogging almost every day.
He says he was so weak before his transplant that he had
trouble crossing the street and climbing stairs. Four-hour
sessions three times a week on dialysis machines were
``living hell.''
[[Page H6419]]
Does it disturb him that an executed man's kidney is in his
abdomen?
``I pray for the guy and say, `Hopefully your afterlife is
better,' '' Mr. Yeo said.
And has he ever wondered whether the prisoner might have
been innocent?
Mr. Yeo pauses and stares straight ahead. ``I haven't gone
through that part--the moral part,'' he said.
``I don't know. I can't question it too much. I have to
live.''
____
[From The New Republic, July 24, 2000]
Sierra Leone, The Last Clinton Betrayal--Where Angels Fear To Tread
(By Ryan Lizza)
Even for the Clinton administration, it was an
extraordinary lie. ``The United States did not pressure
anybody to sign this agreement,'' State Department spokesman
Philip Reeker proclaimed at a press briefing in early June.
``We neither brokered the Lome peace agreement nor leaned on
[Sierra Leonean] President Kabbah to open talks with the
insurgents. . . . It was not an agreement of ours.''
Observers were stunned. The dishonesty, said one Capitol Hill
Africa specialist, was ``positively Orwellian.''
Orwellian because the peace agreement signed in Lome,
Togo--an agreement that forced the democratic president of
Sierra Leone to hand over much of his government and most of
his country's wealth to one of the greatest monsters of the
late twentieth century--was conceived and implemented by the
United States. It was Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton's special
envoy to Africa, who in late 1998 pressed President Ahmad
Tejan Kabbah to ``reach out'' to Foday Sankoh--a man who
built his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) by systematically
kidnapping children and forcing them to murder their parents.
In May 1999, the United States, led by Jackson, brokered and
signed a cease-fire agreement between the government and the
RUF. In June, U.S. officials drafted entire sections of the
accord that gave Sankoh Sierra Leone's vice presidency and
control over its diamond mines, the country's major source of
wealth. U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone Joseph Melrose even
shuttled back and forth between Lome and Sierra Leone's
capital, Freetown, to cajole the reluctant Kabbah. In March
2000, after the accord was signed, American officials hosted
repeated meetings at the U.S. embassy to carry it out.
Barely any of this made the American press. And then this
May, when the RUF took hostage 500 of the U.N. peace-keepers
meant to supervise Lome's implementation--simultaneously
detonating the agreement and catapulting it onto the front
page--the United States washed its hands of the whole thing.
Said Reeker on June 5, ``We were not part of that
agreement.''
The Clinton administration's Africa policy will probably go
down as the strangest of the postcolonial age; it may also go
down as the most grotesque. In dealing with Africa, previous
U.S. administrations were largely unsentimental. Africa was
too poor to affect the U.S. economy, too alien to command a
powerful domestic lobby, too weak to threaten American
security. As a result, past presidents spoke about Africa
modestly and not very often.
Not Bill Clinton. He has proclaimed frequently and
passionately that Africa matters. He has insisted that black
suffering has as great a claim on the American conscience as
white suffering. He has vowed that the United States will no
longer be indifferent. These words have borne no relation
whatsoever to the reality of his administration's policy.
Indeed, confronted with several stark moral challenges, the
Clinton administration has abandoned Africa every time: it
fled from Somalia, it watched American stepchild Liberia
descend into chaos, it blocked intervention in Rwanda. But
Clinton's soaring rhetoric has posed a problem that his
predecessors did not face--the problem of rank hypocrisy. And
so, time and again, the imperative guiding his
administration's Africa policy has been the imperative to
appear to care. Unwilling to commit American blood and
treasure to save African lives, and unwilling to admit that
they refuse to do so, the Clintonites have developed a policy
of coercive dishonesty. In Rwanda, afraid that evidence of
the unfolding genocide would expose their inaction, they
systematically suppressed it. And in Sierra Leone, unwilling
to take on a rebel group that was maiming and slaughtering
civilians by the thousands, the Clintonites insisted that all
the rebels truly wanted was peace and a seat at the
negotiating table.
Abandoning Africans is nothing new. But the Clinton
administration has gone further. It has tried to deny them
the reality of their own experience, to bludgeon them into
pretending that the horrors around them do not truly exist--
so that they won't embarrass the American officials who
proclaim so eloquently that their fates are inextricably
linked to our own.
Sierra Leone, a former British colony whose capital was
founded in the late eighteenth century by freed slaves, was a
pretty nasty place even before the birth of the Revolutionary
United Front. After an initial bout with democracy upon
gaining independence in 1961, it slid into dictatorship and
kleptocracy and stayed there through the 1970s and '80s--
consistently near the bottom in world rankings of infant
mortality, per capita income, and life expectancy.
So the outside world barely noticed when, in 1991, a group
of about 100 guerrillas launched a campaign to take over the
country. But the RUF--backed by Charles Taylor, a warlord in
neighboring Liberia--quickly established itself as a rather
unusual rebel group. For one thing, it had no discernible
political philosophy or agenda. For another, it was almost
unimaginably brutal. Typically, RUF troops would enter a
village and round up its children. Girls as young as ten
would be raped. Boys would be forced to execute village
elders and sometimes even their own parents, thus cutting
themselves off from their past lives and beginning their
absorption into their new rebel ``family.'' Once children
were conscripted, their loyalty was maintained through
drugs--they were injected with speed, which numbed their
sensitivity to violence and rendered them dependent on their
adult suppliers--and violence. When conscripts tried to
escape, RUF leaders amputated their limbs. Refugees even
accused the RUF of cannibalism.
For several years after its initial invasion, the group
terrorized the Sierra Leonean countryside, periodically
closing in on Freetown and being pushed back by a succession
of military dictators. And then in 1996, something remarkable
happened--a burgeoning civil-society movement, backed by the
United States and led largely by women's groups, rose up
against Sierra Leone's military overlords and cleared the way
for the country's first presidential elections since 1967.
The RUF did its best to keep people from the polls--chopping
off the hands of would-be voters--but almost two-thirds of
the electorate cast ballots nonetheless, electing as
president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a longtime U.N. official. After
the election, hundreds of Sierra Leoneans danced outside the
U.S. embassy in Freetown in gratitude for America's support.
The euphoria did not last long. In May 1997, 14 months
after Kabbah's election, disgruntled government soldiers--
known as ``sobels'' because of their collaboration with the
rebels--staged a coup, forcing Kabbah into exile in Guinea.
The coup leaders invited the RUF into their junta, suspended
Sierra Leone's constitution, emptied Freetown's prison of its
worst criminals, and literally held the city's residents
hostage, placing artillery in the hills around the capital
and threatening to bombard the civilians below if removed
from power.
No one expected the United States to send troops to restore
democracy; this was, after all, Africa. But it didn't need
to. Nigeria, a country that long fancied itself the region's
hegemon, already had its own intervention force in Sierra
Leone under the auspices of an organization called ECOMOG,
the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring
Group.
While Nigeria, a country in perpetual economic crisis,
spent some $1 million per day battling the criminal regime in
Freetown, several mid-level State Department Africa hands
began lobbying their superiors to request funds from Congress
to bolster ECOMOG's work. But the administration refused,
saying such a request was pointless because Congress would
say no. And, while the Clintonites were right that the
Republican Congress wasn't usually enamored of foreign aid,
the struggle for Sierra Leone might have offered the
administration an opportunity to put its vaunted commitment
to Africa into action. Indeed, several sympathetic members of
Congress--Republicans and Democrats--even urged the State
Department to challenge Congress to rise to the occasion. But
the challenge never came. ``It was totally bizarre,'' says
one person with knowledge of the internal squabbling. ``A
decision was made that the State Department was just not
going to ask for it.''
In fact, not only did the Bureau of African Affairs not
request additional money from Congress, it didn't even spend
the money Congress had already given it. For months, $3.9
million sat unspent in the bureau's budget for voluntary
peacekeeping operations. In February 1998, ECOMOG liberated
Freetown and restored Kabbah to power--proving that the RUF's
child soldiers were no match for a bona fide adult military.
As the rebels streamed back into the countryside, The
Nigerians saw an opportunity to finish them off for good. But
ECOMOG lacked the resources to take the war into the Sierra
Leonean hinterland, and still no money came from the Clinton
administration. ``The only way they [ECOMOG soldiers] could
eat is because the people of Sierra Leone gave them food and
places to sleep,'' says one U.S. official. By spring, the
window of opportunity had closed. The RUF, freshly resupplied
by Liberia, was back on the offensive with a campaign of
systematic killing, mutilating, and raping called Operation
No Living Thing. In late May, long after it could have made a
real difference, the administration finally allocated the
$3.9 million to ECOMOG.
Nigeria, visibly tiring of its proxy war, began to look for
a way out, and the United States faced an even starker
version of the same dilemma it had confronted all along. It
could make a major financial and political commitment, in
conjunction with the Nigerians or others, to save a fledgling
democratic government too weak to save itself. Or it could
abandon that government, leaving Sierra Leone to Sankoh and
his child butchers--because, after all, Sierra Leone did not
remotely affect America's vital national interest. The
Clintonites, typically, did neither. Against all the evidence
that Sierra Leone could be saved from the RUF only through
war, the Clinton administration set out to make peace. In
early spring 1998, a group of U.S. policymakers gathered on
the sixth floor of the State Department to plot
[[Page H6420]]
strategy. One senior official summarized their goal: ``We
need to appear to be doing something.''
To make peace with Foday Sankoh and the RUF, the
Clintonites had to go through Sankoh's political godfather,
Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. Taylor and Sankoh attended
the same school--a Libyan secret-service camp known as al-
Mathabh al-Thauriya al-Alamiya (World Revolutionary
Headquarters), a sort of university for revolutionary
guerrillas from all over Africa. When they met, Taylor had
recently returned from the United States, where he had
escaped from a prison in Plymouth, Massachusetts, while
awaiting extradition back to Liberia on charges of
embezzlement. Sankoh, imprisoned in the '70s for his role in
plotting a coup, had been working as an itinerant
photographer in the Sierra Leonean countryside. Each man
dreamed of overthrowing his native government, and they
pledged to help each other do so.
Taylor got his chance first, on Christmas Eve 1989, when he
launched a civil war that would become a model for Sankoh's a
year and a half later. One of Taylor's first military
innovations was his creation of the Small Boys Unit, a
battalion of intensely loyal child soldiers who were fed
crack cocaine and referred to Taylor as ``our father.'' Soon,
refugees from the Liberian countryside began recounting
stories of horrific cruelty. Taylor's soldiers were seeking
out pregnant women and placing bets on the sex of their
unborn children. Then they would rip open the woman's wombs
and tear out the babies to see who was right. Evidence of
cannibalism also began to trickle out. One soldier told
Reuters, ``We rip the hearts from their living bodies and put
them on the fire, then eat them.'' A Liberian human rights
organization claimed cannibalism in Taylor-controlled
territory was so widespread that ``there is fear of
persecution based on one's fitness for consumption.''
Taylor's own defense minister accused him of taking part in
the practice himself.
By 1991, Liberia looked a lot like Sierra Leone would look
seven years later. Troops from ECOMOG defended a weak
government in the capital, Monrovia, while Taylor controlled
the other 90 percent of the country. Taylor developed a vast
warlord economy, selling off Liberia's minerals and raw
materials, trafficking in hashish, and reportedly reaping an
annual income of about $250 million. But he wanted to expand
his lucrative empire even further--to include the diamond
mines just across the border in Sierra Leone. What's more, he
wanted revenge against Sierra Leone, which had served as a
base for the ECOMOG troops that were preventing his total
victory in Liberia.
So he kept his deal with Sankoh. In March 1991, a number of
Taylor's fiercest fighters accompanied Sankoh and the
fledgling RUF into Sierra Leone, where they headed straight
for the diamond mines. Taylor appointed Sankoh ``governor of
Sierra Leone,'' and his soldiers jokingly referred to Sierra
Leone as their Kuwait. Sankoh frequently visited Taylor at
his headquarters in the Liberian town of Gbarnga.
And then in 1996, with Liberia in ashes and 13 failed peace
agreements--``[Taylor] reneged on all of them,'' says a
former senior State Department official--Taylor offered his
Sierra Leonean protege the ultimate lesson in the politics of
terror: he took power. Taylor agreed to stand for election.
He had the largest army and the most money, and he made it
clear that if he did not win, he would resume the killing. A
country exhausted by war elected him president. During the
run-up to the vote, Taylor's child soldiers took to the
streets, chanting what became his unofficial campaign slogan:
``He killed my pa. He killed my ma. I'll vote for him.''
To bring ``peace'' to Sierra Leone, the Clinton
administration first had to show that Sankoh and Taylor were
men with whom one could legitimately do business. ``Their
whole policy was to `mainstream' them--that was the word used
by someone at State,'' explains an aide to the House
International Relations Committee. ``If you treat Sankoh like
a statesman, he'll be one'. . . . [A State Department
official] used the term to explain what they had done with
Taylor and what they were trying to do with Foday Sankoh.''
In Jesse Jackson, appointed, ``Special Envoy for the
President and Secretary of State for the Promotion of
Democracy in Africa'' in October 1997, Washington had the
ideal man for the job.
Jackson first met the Liberian dictator on an official trip
to West Africa in February 1998. Taylor, worried that
Jackson, like prior American diplomats, would hector him
about human rights, invited an old Liberian friend of
Jackson's named Romeo Horton to brief him on America's new
envoy. Horton says Jackson and Taylor's meeting went
extremely well. ``Instead of meeting an adversary,'' says
Horton, Taylor ``met a friend.'' The following month, when
Clinton toured Africa, Jackson arranged a 30-minute phone
call between the two leaders from Air Force One. Upon
returning home, Jackson organized a conference on
``reconciliation'' for Liberians at his PUSH headquarters in
Chicago. According to Harry Greaves Jr., co-founder of a
Liberian opposition party, who attended the Chicago
conference, ``The message was, `[Taylor's] been elected, and
let's give him a chance.' It's all about p.r., and Jackson is
part of that campaign.'' As Leslie Cole, an old friend of
Taylor's, wrote to the new president soon after Jackson's
conference, ``Getting Jesse on the bandwagon was a good and
smart idea.''
So it's not surprising that by the time Jackson began the
diplomatic push that would lead to Lome, he and Taylor were
giving the same advice to the democratic government of Sierra
Leone: Cut a deal with the RUF. In November 1998, Jackson
traveled to West Africa again, meeting with Taylor and Kabbah
in Guinea and then, in Freetown, with Kabbah alone. During
his five-hour stop in Sierra Leone, Jackson, who arrived just
days after fresh reports that the RUF was beheading children
and disemboweling pregnant women, urged Kabbah to make
concessions to the rebels. ``The government must reach out to
these RUF in the bush battlefield,'' Jackson told Sierra
Leonean leaders. Much of Freetown believed otherwise. ``Think
again, Jackson, the RUF is not a civilized body to be
trusted,'' implored one prominent newspaper. A local
journalist asked Jackson why he was telling Sierra Leoneans
to negotiate with the RUF when the public was against it. ``I
remember very clearly what he said,'' says Zainab Bangura, a
prominent member of Freetown's democracy movement. `` `That
is what leadership is about: to mold public opinion, not to
follow public opinion.' '' Sierra Leone's current ambassador
to the United States, John Leigh, remembers Jackson's trip
well. ``When he went to Sierra Leone in 1998,'' Leigh says,
``what he was doing was pushing Charles Taylor's position.''
Seven weeks after Jackson departed, as Bangura put it
recently, ``All hell broke loose.'' The ``hell'' was the
January 1999 RUF assault on Freetown, which, hard as it is to
believe, set a new standard for rebel atrocities.
Capitalizing on ECOMOG's weariness, the RUF marched into the
capital surrounded by a human shield of civilians that
prevented the Nigerians from launching an effective
counterattack. Divided into squads with names like ``Burn
House Unit,'' ``Cut Hands Commandos,'' and ``Kill Man No
Blood Unit'' (the last group specialized in beating people to
death without spilling blood), the RUF burned down houses
with their occupants still inside, hacked off limbs, gouged
out eyes with knives, raped children, and gunned down scores
of people in the streets. In three weeks, the RUF killed some
6,000 people, mostly civilians. When the rebels were finally
forced from the city by an ECOMOG counterattack, they burned
down while blocks as they left and abducted thousands of
children, boys and girls who would become either soldiers or
sex slaves.
Incredibly, the Clintonites didn't abandon their efforts to
``mainstream'' the RUF in the weeks following the attack;
they intensified them. In February, just weeks after the
assault, the State Department hosted the RUF's ``legal
representative,'' Omrie Golley, for talks in Washington.
While Golley was at the State Department, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs Howard Jeter organized
a phone call between him and Kabbah, establishing the first
formal contact between the government and the rebels. Golley
remembers the experience fondly. In contrast to the British,
who he says treated his group with disdain, Golley gushes
that he ``was always very impressed with the American
approach to the whole conflict.''
Golley also met with New Jersey Representative Donald
Payne, probably the most important member of Congress on
Africa policy. Within the Congressional Black Caucus, it is
common knowledge that members take their cues on Africa from
Payne. And, given the overriding importance of domestic
politics--particularly domestic racial politics--on the
Clinton administration's Africa policy, Payne wields
substantial influence.
Among Capitol Hill Africa specialists, Payne's sympathy for
Taylor and Sankoh is the stuff of legend. In February 1999,
for instance, after his meeting with Golley, Payne wrote to
Kabbah imploring him to pursue negotiations with Sankoh, who
had been temporarily captured by the government and was
actually awaiting execution for treason, even while the RUF
continued the war. ``[S]uccessful negotiations must be
without precondition and include the permanent release of Mr.
Foday Sankoh,'' Payne wrote. ``That letter is exactly what
Charles Taylor was saying at the same time in Liberia. He was
saying Sankoh should be freed,'' says Ambassador Leigh.
``That letter that Payne wrote to President Kabbah is exactly
the type of agreement that the State Department pressed
Kabbah to accept.'' And, indeed, Sankoh was released as part
of the run-up to Lome.
On the House Africa Subcommittee, where Payne is the
ranking Democrat, both Republican and Democratic staff
members say he has bashed ecomog and questioned whether
Taylor was really aiding the RUF. In May of last year, Payne
fought to remove from a resolution language accusing Liberia
and other countries of supporting the rebels, even after the
State Department formally acknowledged that Taylor
``continues to actively support the rebels in Sierra Leone,
including the provision of arms and ammunition.'' Says one
Democratic aide, ``Whenever there is talk of sanctioning
Taylor or of threatening Liberia . . . Mr. Payne is always
the first one to jump to their defense.'' Former Liberian
Ambassador to the United States Rachel Diggs says Taylor
``had free access to Don Payne and Jesse Jackson . . .
whenever there was a problem, these were the people whose ear
Taylor had in the U.S. and who had his ear in Liberia.''
Indeed, Payne's relationship with Taylor goes back to the
early '80s, when Taylor was in jail in Massachusetts and
Payne, then a member of the Newark municipal council,
[[Page H6421]]
spoke out against his extradition to Liberia. Payne says he
was simply helping Taylor at the behest of a friend and
didn't actually meet the Liberian until 1997, when he
attended Taylor's presidential inauguration in Monrovia. But
since then the two men have clearly become friends. One
visitor to Payne's office tells of watching the congressman
hang up the phone with Taylor and remark that the Liberian
president had just told him he was tired of dealing with
Jeter, the U.S. envoy for Liberia. (Taylor is known to
dislike Jeter, once referring to him as a ``burnt-out''
diplomat.) Taylor suggested that Payne become the U.S. envoy
instead. ``What surprised me was that Payne didn't say
anything,'' says the visitor. ``He seemed flattered.'' Payne
says he does not remember any such conversation. At one
point, according to an associate of Payne's, the New Jersey
congressman jokingly complained that he was getting so many
calls from Taylor that he was tired of talking to him. Payne
insists he has talked on the phone to Taylor no more than
half a dozen times.
Within three months of Golley's February 1999 visit to the
State Department and the congressional offices of Donald
Payne, the phone call initiated by Howard Jeter had led to a
government/RUF cease-fire. With striking unanimity, Sierra
Leonean intellectuals believe that Kabbah, a rather weak
president, agreed to the cease-fire under pressure from
Jackson and against the advice of some of his ministers and
prominent members of civil society. Days before the
ceasefire, Jackson and Kabbah met up in Ghana, where both
were attending a conference. From Ghana, Jackson abruptly
flew Kabbah to the talks in Lome, Togo, where the cease-fire
agreement was signed. One Freetown newspaper even reported
that Kabbah was ``kidnapped'' by Jackson. ``The story was,''
explains Zainab Bangura, ``that he was kidnapped, because
[Kabbah] went [to the conference in Ghana] with his finance
minister and information minister''--at the time both men
were thought to be against signing the agreement--``and they
all went to the airport to go to fly to Lome, and Jesse
Jackson said there were no seats for them. So they didn't
go.''
The cease-fire paved the way for the Lome peace talks
themselves. And, once again, the United States took the lead.
U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone Joseph Melrose was a constant
presence at the negotiating table. ``They oversaw the whole
peace talks,'' says Abu Brima, who attended as the leader of
a delegation representing Sierra Leonean civil society.
``Melrose was very, very active and literally kind of led it,
I would say.'' Bangura adds: ``Every time the talks were
about to fall apart, Melrose would fly over to Freetown to
pressure the president.'' According to Leigh, Melrose's ``job
was to soften the Sierra Leonean delegation to accept the
agreement.'' The Clinton administration even sent a technical
team, led by a USAID official named Sylvia Fletcher, that
actually drafted parts of the accord.
The final agreement at Lome, signed on July 7, 1999,
awarded the RUF four ministerial posts, made Sankoh vice
president, placed him in charge of a new commission to
oversee Sierra Leone's diamonds, and granted the RUF blanket
amnesty for all crimes. After the agreement was signed,
Fletcher and Melrose held meetings establishing the diamond
commission--which included Sankoh, members of Kabbah's
government, and representatives from De Beers and other
diamond companies--at the U.S. embassy. As one U.S.
government official put it, ``The message we sent with Lome
is that you can terrorize your way to power.''
For close to a year, the Lome agreement did what the
Clinton administration hoped it would do. With articles on
pages A17 and A6, respectively, The Washington Post and The
New York Times announced the accord and ushered Sierra Leone
off their pages--another peace process successfully brokered
by an administration committed to the well-being of Africa.
As Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan
Rice bragged last September, ``the U.S. role in Sierra Leone
. . . has been instrumental. With hands-on efforts by the
president's special envoy Jesse Jackson, Ambassador Joe
Melrose, and many others, the United States brokered the
cease-fire and helped steer Sierra Leone's rebels, the Kabbah
government, and regional leaders to the negotiating table.''
It probably wouldn't even have mattered that Sankoh refused
to disarm--of the estimated 10,000 children fighting for the
RUF, only about 1,700 were turned over to demobilization
camps, as required--or that he continued the illicit diamond-
trading that Lome was meant to stop. If Lome had simply
unraveled quietly--even if Sankoh had followed his mentor in
Liberia and grabbed complete power himself--it is unlikely
that Sierra Leone would have made the American front pages.
The Clinton administration would still have accomplished much
of what it set out to do at that meeting on the sixth floor
of the State Department in spring 1998.
But this May, in an ironic twist of fate, Sierra Leone
leapt from the shadows into the world spotlight. Lome had
achieved one of the RUF's central goals--the exit of the
stubborn Nigerians. The U.N. peacekeepers who took their
place--sent from countries like India, Jordan, Kenya, and
Ghana--were ill-equipped and bound by the timid U.N. rules of
engagement. And, as soon as they ventured into the RUF's
diamond heartland, the rebels stole their weapons and
vehicles and held them hostage for several weeks. The
humiliating standoff brought Lome crashing down in full
public view. And U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's
desperate appeals for Western countries to send troops to
reinforce his peacekeepers called global attention to the
very point the Clinton administration had worked so hard to
conceal: Its unwillingness to sacrifice anything real on
behalf of the people of Sierra Leone. Instead of soldiers,
the United States once again sent Jesse Jackson. But, by this
time, Jackson was so bitterly despised in Freetown that the
Sierra Leonean government told him it could not guarantee his
safety. One group of prominent Sierra Leonean democracy
activists warned Jackson, ``Our people will greet your
presence in the country with contempt, and we'll encourage
them to mount massive demonstrations in protest.'' During a
conference call with Freetown leaders in which he tried to
explain himself, Jackson was openly attacked as a RUF
``collaborator.'' His trip to Sierra Leone was canceled.
Today, a year after Lome, the U.N. hostages have finally
been freed. Foday Sankoh has even been captured and will
likely be tried as a war criminal. President Kabbah's
government is defended by a shaky coalition of citizen
militias, government soldiers, former RUF collaborators, U.N.
troops, and, most importantly, military advisers from Great
Britain--the only Western power to heed Annan's call.
Sankoh's apparent replacement has been given sanctuary in
Liberia by Taylor, who continues to arm the RUF. The rebels
still control much of the Sierra Leonean countryside, and
there are widespread rumors of an imminent RUF attack on
Freetown. If the British leave, an attack is all but certain.
At the National Summit on Africa in February, President
Clinton said, ``We can no longer choose not to know. We can
only choose not to act, or to act. In this world, we can be
indifferent, or we can make a difference. America must
choose, when it comes to Africa, to make a difference.''
Sophisticated people understand what this kind of talk,
coming from this administration, means. And the people of
Sierra Leone, who now count prostheses as one of their
country's chief imports, have become sophisticated. In fact,
in recent months Sierra Leonean exiles in Washington have
increasingly allied themselves with Republicans like New
Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg. It's a remarkable turn of
events, given that Gregg and his ilk are isolationists--men
who say forthrightly that America has no important interests
in Africa, can't successfully export its method of government
there, and shouldn't waste blood or money trying. After eight
years of the Clinton administration, it seems, the people of
Sierra Leone no longer expect very much from the United
States. They're willing to settle for truth.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) has
2 minutes remaining and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) has the
right to close.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me say to my colleagues before the vote here, this is a motion to
disapprove of the President's waiver of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to
the U.S. Trade Relations Act. Right now, all of us can trade with
China. There is no problem there. You or I could go out to trade with
them. All corporations can trade with them. But under this motion, we
are saying yes to disapprove of the President's waiver. What he wants
to do is continue this waiver of the Jackson-Vanik amendment so that
basically when businesses go into China, they are subsidized by U.S.
taxpayers, agricultural subsidies, Ex-Import Bank subsidies and a
myriad of these subsidies that helps businesses when they go in. But
when the taxpayer goes into business for himself, does he get support
and subsidies from the government? No.
So all we are saying today, vote yes on this motion to prohibit this
waiver by the President of the Jackson-Vanik amendment and let these
businesses continue to go in and continue to do business but not at the
taxpayers' expense. I think we have heard plenty of arguments to show
during this vigorous debate that there are human rights issues, that
there are espionage issues, that there is the hiring of these Chinese
technicians in this country to work on related military dual use
technologies issues. Our relationship is moving along and in some ways
it is bad and in some ways it is good, but I do not think the American
taxpayers should be forced to subsidize businesses that go in. I ask
for a ``yes'' on the motion to disapprove of the President's waiver of
the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) is
recognized for up to 10 minutes.
[[Page H6422]]
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, we have heard expressions here on the floor
today as we have heard in the past during our debates on this issue of
persecution of Christians, Muslims and other groups in China which is a
legitimate and serious concern. However, the U.S. can be most effective
in advancing religious freedom by expanding our engagement with the
Chinese people and by continuing to press Beijing to respect the rights
of Chinese believers.
World religious leaders, including the Reverend Billy Graham, the
Reverend Pat Robertson, the Dalai Lama, the American Friends Committee,
Father Robert Drinan, the National Council of Churches, Rabbi Arthur
Schneier and Reverend Don Argue with the National Association of
Evangelicals see continued U.S. engagement with China as key to
promoting religious freedom. Two years ago, the Chinese Service
Coordinating Committee, an umbrella group for U.S. religious agencies
working in China, said ``a public Christian stance against MFN status
for China is not in the interest of the church in China, and will
seriously hamper the efforts of Christians from outside China who have
spent years seeking to establish an effective Christian witness among
the Chinese people.''
Religious activity of all types is flourishing as ordinary Chinese
reach out for new forms of belief. Unofficially, it is estimated that
there are now 30 to 60 million Chinese Protestants, 6 million
Catholics, 17 million Muslims, and 100 million Buddhists.
The present situation stands in stark contrast to the post-Communist
revolution China of the 1950s when religious activity was harshly
suppressed. The situation worsened even further during the Cultural
Revolution when many churches were closed and church properties were
seized.
Engagement with China has made it possible to disseminate Bibles and
religious literature to Chinese citizens. World Pulse, a publication of
the Billy Graham Center, has 250,000 readers in China. East Gates
International, a Christian organization, publishes and distributes
religious materials in China and reports that ``expanding U.S. economic
ties with China and especially China's admittance to the World Trade
Organization will continue to benefit religious organizations working
in China.''
{time} 1500
While some, indeed, believe the annual Normal Trade Relation votes
can be used as leverage, U.S. religious groups who are actively engaged
in evangelical work in China believe such threats are highly
counterproductive.
Threatening U.S. economic sanctions in the name of religion creates
an impression that religion is being used as a tool of U.S. foreign
policy and undermines their work in China. Recently pastors of key
house churches in China, many of whom have served time in prison for
their beliefs, urged Congress to approve Permanent Normal Trade
Relations.
We in the House have already taken that action as everyone knows, and
it is the absence of completion of that work still that causes us to go
through this annual renewal procedure, but the annual renewal procedure
is consistent with what we did recently when the House overwhelmingly
supported granting mainland China Permanent Normal Trade Relations, and
we should.
In this instance, on today's resolution, all vote no to reject it
overwhelmingly and be insistent with what we have done thus far.
Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution to
disapprove annual normal trade relations (NTR) with China.
Unfortunately, we should have debated the one year extension in May,
instead of the harmful bill that will give permanent normal trade
relations (PNTR) trade status to China's barbaric regime, and will
ensure that multinational corporations have the investment protection
they need to exploit China's cheap labor. China doesn't deserve annual
normal trade relations status and it definitely doesn't deserve the
permanent normal trade relations status the House approved in May.
Regardless of how the House voted on PNTR, I will take this opportunity
to tell my colleagues and the American people why the People's Republic
of China (PRC) does not deserve normal trade privileges with the United
States--for the next year or permanently.
Just one month after the House voted to give China PNTR, the New York
Times reported that China continues to aid Pakistan in its efforts to
build long-range missiles that could carry nuclear weapons. China plays
by its own rules and doesn't adhere to the rules of the international
community. The United States wouldn't need to monitor the regional
tension between India and Pakistan if China worked toward a mutual goal
of nonproliferation. Instead, China provokes Pakistan with transfers of
nuclear technology and exacerbates tensions between the two countries.
Senator Thompson is trying to force a vote on his bill to monitor
China's nuclear proliferation activities with greater scrutiny and
applies sanctions if China is found proliferating weapons of mass
destruction. Unfortunately, Senator Thompson is finding resistance from
his own party that does not link PNTR with a nonproliferation bill.
We saw what happened when the Administration decided to de-link trade
and human rights for China. Human rights abuses in China worsened yet
China has been allowed to export their cheap sneakers to the United
States.
Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained,
tortured and now are being committed to Chinese mental institutions for
the mere expression of their faith. The Chinese government claims that
Falun Gong is a religious cult not approved by the state. The state
does not approve peaceful meditation, but it does approve torture and
forced abortions. The Chinese government does not approve Roman
Catholicism, but the sale of executed prisoner's kidneys is perfectly
acceptable to the PRC. The United States cannot allow this barbaric
government to harm its own people without facing some sort of
punishment. Withholding annual normal trade relations should be that
punishment.
China is the biggest producer of ozone layer-destroying
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and will soon surpass the United States as
the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. The United States suffers from
China's earth-destroying practices. The United States spends $3 billion
annually on cataract operations and billions more on treating skin
cancer cases due to the destruction of the earth's protective ozone
layer. China's irreverence for environmental standards is reflective of
its irreverence for human life. This is unacceptable in the 21st
Century. China must be held accountable for its actions--human rights
violations, labor rights violations, trade violations, weapons
proliferation and environmental violations must be scrutinized and the
annual NTR debate is the forum for scrutiny.
Withholding annual NTR will send a clear signal to Beijing that the
United States does not condone its inhumane actions. Opposing the
annual NTR extensions will tell China that the United States is willing
to hold the PRC accountable. China must pay a price for its actions,
and that price should be United States trade. I urge my colleagues to
support disapproval of extending NTR status to China yet again.
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, again I come to the floor to debate the
issue of trade with China. In no way should the United States'
continued engagement with China be seen as a reward for its horrendous
human rights violations. As co-chairman of the Congressional Human
Rights Caucus, I am all too familiar with the human rights violations
which the government of China practices everyday against so many of its
own citizens. From the Falun Gong to the Catholic Bishops, to the
Tibetan Buddhist and the Uighur Muslims, this past year has seen
China's continued persecution of its minorities.
I strongly believe that for change to come about and for democracy to
take hold in China, the citizens of China must be exposed to democratic
ideals and other Western values. Today, these very ideals are taking
root throughout China. They are taking place because of our current
policy of engagement, one on one, business to business, client to
customer. Information is also being spread by important U.S. programs,
such as Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America. Slowly, attitudes and
actions are changing. The Chinese people want freedoms: freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. We know these ideals
are slowly taking hold. This is evident though radio Free Asia's call-
in listen program which is overburdened every day with thousands of
citizens risking their lives to express their views, which is currently
prohibited by the Chinese government. If the United States wants to see
true change in China, see freedoms enjoyed by all throughout the
country, programs such as Radio Free Asia must continue to exist and
must be expanded so they can reach a greater audience.
If we hope to bring stability and democracy to Asia, we must not turn
our backs on the largest country in the world. We must continue to work
with the Administration in pressuring the Chinese government to release
all political prisoners including Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswomen
jailed earlier this year, and to allow the Dali Lama to return to
Tibet. We
[[Page H6423]]
must also continue to support worthwhile, effective endeavors current
in place, including Radio Fred Asia. I hold out hope that greater
involvement in the world community will one day bring out respect for
human rights and the rule of law in China.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the passage of
H.J. Res. 103 and deny the extension of Normal Trade Relations with
China.
I believe that we are all shaped by our life experiences. We are all
influenced by the lessons from our youth.
For me, post-World War II Chicago was a unique place and time to grow
up. At home, in school, in church, and in the ballfields, we learned
the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, friends and
enemies.
Our parents taught us the value of hard work and discipline. When we
played 16-inch softball, we knew the rules, and we played by them. It
was wrong to cheat, and cheaters were punished. In school, we learned
about our nation's history. In the schoolyards, we learned who were our
friends and who weren't. In church, we learned about God, morality, and
right and wrong. When I grew up, we learned to love and honor this
nation and all that it stands for.
I value those simple lessons from my youth that remain with me to
this day, which is why I opposed NTR for China.
The Communist leaders in Beijing do not play by our rules. They do
not act as friends. They do not act in the interest of peace and
prosperity for all.
Instead, they point missiles at the democratic island of Taiwan and
U.S. military bases on Japan, break trade agreements with the U.S.,
sell nuclear and other dangerous weapon technologies to the highest
bidder, practice forced abortions, throw democratic activists into
jail, ignore human rights, and set up concentration camps.
We do not trade with other totalitarian regimes.
Do we have NTR with North Korea?
Do we have NTR with Serbia?
Do we have NTR with Cuba?
No, no, and no.
Then why should China get it?
That is the question I pose to my colleagues today. Think about the
lessons from our youth. Think about the logic of trading with China.
Think about what it means for this nation and our ideals.
Mr. Speaker, I am not someone who seeks out confrontation and
conflict with anyone. I do not believe that the U.S. should carelessly
start needless fights in this world. But we must protect our interests.
We must protect our ideals. We must protect our principles.
I can see a day in the future where we can freely and fairly trade
with a friendly and democratic China. I can see a day in the future
where China acts as our friend in promoting peace and prosperity.
I want to see such a day happen, but until the day that China becomes
a democracy that is for the people and by the people, until China stops
pointing missiles at the U.S. and Taiwan, until China honors its trade
agreements, until China starts to respect basic human rights, I will
continue to fight against giving a blank NTR check to China.
Vote for this resolution and against NTR for China.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). All time for debate has
expired.
Pursuant to the order of the House of Monday, July 17, 2000, the
joint resolution is considered read for amendment and the previous
question is ordered.
The question is on the engrossment and the third reading of the joint
resolution.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third
time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint
resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 147,
nays 281, not voting 6, as follows:
[Roll No. 405]
YEAS--147
Abercrombie
Aderholt
Baca
Baldacci
Baldwin
Barcia
Barr
Bartlett
Barton
Bonior
Borski
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Burr
Burton
Capuano
Clay
Clyburn
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Condit
Conyers
Cook
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cummings
Danner
Davis (IL)
Deal
DeFazio
Delahunt
DeLauro
Diaz-Balart
Doyle
Duncan
Ehrlich
Engel
Evans
Forbes
Frank (MA)
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilman
Goode
Goodling
Graham
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hastings (FL)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hilleary
Hilliard
Horn
Hostettler
Hunter
Jackson (IL)
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
King (NY)
Kingston
Klink
Kucinich
Lantos
Lee
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Mascara
McIntyre
McKinney
Meek (FL)
Menendez
Metcalf
Miller, George
Mink
Mollohan
Nadler
Ney
Norwood
Obey
Olver
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Payne
Pelosi
Phelps
Pombo
Quinn
Rahall
Riley
Rivers
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Rothman
Rush
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaffer
Schakowsky
Sensenbrenner
Sisisky
Smith (NJ)
Souder
Spence
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Strickland
Stupak
Tancredo
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Traficant
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Velazquez
Visclosky
Wamp
Waters
Weldon (FL)
Wexler
Weygand
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
NAYS--281
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Ballenger
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bass
Bateman
Becerra
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Cannon
Capps
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth-Hage
Clayton
Clement
Combest
Cooksey
Cramer
Crane
Crowley
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis (FL)
Davis (VA)
DeGette
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Dreier
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Emerson
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Ewing
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Fletcher
Foley
Ford
Fossella
Fowler
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gonzalez
Goodlatte
Gordon
Goss
Granger
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Istook
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kelly
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Largent
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
McNulty
Meehan
Meeks (NY)
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Minge
Moakley
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Northup
Nussle
Oberstar
Ortiz
Ose
Oxley
Packard
Pastor
Paul
Pease
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sandlin
Sawyer
Scott
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (TX)
Snyder
Stabenow
Stenholm
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Toomey
Turner
Upton
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weiner
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--6
Boswell
Campbell
McCollum
McIntosh
Smith (WA)
Vento
{time} 1525
Messrs. NUSSLE, ARMEY, DeLAY, CUNNINGHAM, MALONEY of Connecticut,
GONZALEZ, GARY MILLER
[[Page H6424]]
of California, Ms. PRYCE of Ohio, Ms. NAPOLITANO, Mrs. BIGGERT, Ms.
SLAUGHTER and Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE changed their vote from ``yea'' to
``nay.''
Messrs. CAPUANO, FRANK of Massachusetts, LIPINSKI, GUTIERREZ, BARTON
of Texas, QUINN, Ms. LEE and Mrs. MEEK of Florida changed their vote
from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the joint resolution was not passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
____________________