    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [March 8, 2000]
    [Pages 404-408]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 404]]

    Remarks at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
    March 8, 2000

        Thank you very much, President Brody,
    Dean Wolfowitz. I thank all the members of
    our administration who are here--Secretary Daley, who is coordinating our efforts in the Congress; Secretary
    Summers; Secretary Glickman. I want to say a special word of thanks to Ambassador
    Barshefsky and National Economic Adviser
    Gene Sperling who negotiated this agreement
    with China and wrung the last drop of blood out of it. And my National
    Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, I thank him
    for his great advocacy; Ambassador Holbrooke; to our OPIC President, George Munoz.
        I would also like to acknowledge the presence of a very important
    member of our economic team, Lael Brainard,
    because her mother works here at SAIS, and I
    want her mother to know she's done a good job. She may never speak to me
    again, but her mother will be happy. [Laughter]
        I want to thank all the distinguished people in the audience, who
    care so much about China, and the faculty and the students here of this
    magnificent institution. And I want to thank my longtime friend Lee
    Hamilton. If I had any respect for this
    audience, I would just ask you to wait 5 minutes; I'd run out and copy
    his speech, hand it to you. He said exactly what I wanted to say in
    about 2,000 fewer words. [Laughter]
        I also want to say, President Brody and
    Dean Wolfowitz, how much I appreciate the
    involvement of Johns Hopkins and the School for Advanced International
    Studies in China, in particular, at this moment in history and for
    giving me the chance to come here and talk about what is one of the most
    important decisions America has made in years.
        Last fall, as all of you know, the United States signed the
    agreement to bring China into the WTO on terms that will open its market
    to American products and investments. When China concludes similar
    agreements with other countries, it will join the WTO. But as Lee said,
    for us to benefit from that, we must first grant it permanent normal
    trading status, the same arrangement we have given other countries in
    the WTO. Before coming here today, I submitted legislation to Congress
    to do that, and I again publicly urge Congress to approve it as soon as
    possible.
        Again, I want to emphasize what has already been said. Congress will
    not be voting on whether China will join the WTO. Congress can only
    decide whether the United States will share in the economic benefits of
    China joining the WTO. A vote against PNTR will cost America jobs, as
    our competitors in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere capture Chinese markets
    that we otherwise would have served.
        Supporting China's entry into the WTO, however, is about more than
    our economic interests. It is clearly in our larger national interest.
    It represents the most significant opportunity that we have had to
    create positive change in China since the 1970's, when President Nixon
    first went there, and later in the decade when President Carter
    normalized relations. I am working as hard as I can to convince Congress
    and the American people to seize this opportunity.
        For a long time now, the United States has debated its relationship
    with China, through all the changes, particularly, of the last century.
    And like all human beings everywhere, we see this relationship through
    the prism of our own experience. In the early 1900's, most Americans saw
    China either through the eyes of traders seeking new markets or
    missionaries seeking new converts. During World War II, China was our
    ally; during the Korean war, our adversary. At the dawn of the cold war,
    when I was a young boy beginning to study such things, it was a cudgel
    in a political battle: Who lost China? Later, it was a counterweight to
    the Soviet Union. And now, in some people's eyes, it's a caricature.
    Will it be the next great capitalist tiger with the biggest market in
    the world, or the world's last great communist dragon and a threat to
    stability in Asia?
        Through all the changes in China and the changes in our perception
    of China, there has been one constant: We understand that America has a
    profound stake in what happens in China and how China relates to the
    rest of the world. That's why, for 30 years, every President, without
    regard to party, has worked for a China that contributes to the
    stability of Asia, that is

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    open to the world, that upholds the rule of law at home and abroad.
        Of course, the path that China takes to the future is a choice China
    will make. We cannot control that choice; we can only influence it. But
    we must recognize that we do have complete control over what we do. We
    can work to pull China in the right direction, or we can turn our backs
    and almost certainly push it in the wrong direction.
        The WTO agreement will move China in the right direction. It will
    advance the goals America has worked for in China for the past three
    decades. And of course, it will advance our own economic interests.
        Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street.
    It requires China to open its markets--with a fifth of the world's
    population, potentially the biggest markets in the world--to both our
    products and services in unprecedented new ways. All we do is to agree
    to maintain the present access which China enjoys. Chinese tariffs, from
    telecommunications products to automobiles to agriculture, will fall by
    half or more over just 5 years. For the first time, our companies will
    be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in
    America, without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell
    through the Chinese Government, or transfer valuable technology. For the
    first time, we'll be able to export products without exporting jobs.
        Meanwhile, we'll get valuable new safeguards against any surges of
    imports from China. We're already preparing for the largest enforcement
    effort ever given for a trade agreement.
        If Congress passes PNTR, we reap these rewards. If Congress rejects
    it, our competitors reap these rewards. Again, we must understand the
    consequences of saying no. If we don't sell our products to China,
    someone else will step into the breach, and we'll spend the next 20
    years wondering why in the wide world we handed over the benefits we
    negotiated to other people.
        Of course, we're going to continue our efforts not just to expand
    trade but to expand it in a way that reinforces our fundamental values
    and, for me, the way the global economic system must move. Trade must
    not be a race to the bottom, whether we're talking about child labor or
    basic working conditions or the environment. The more we avoid dealing
    with these issues, the more we fuel the fires of protectionism. That's
    why we'll continue our efforts to make the WTO itself more open, more
    transparent, more participatory, and to elevate the consideration of
    labor and environmental issues in trade.
        But most of the critics of the China-WTO agreement do not seriously
    question its economic benefits. They're more likely to say things like
    this: ``China is a growing threat to Taiwan and its neighbors. We
    shouldn't strengthen it,'' or, ``China violates labor rights and human
    rights. We shouldn't reward it,'' or, ``China is a dangerous
    proliferator. We shouldn't empower it.''
        These concerns are valid, but the conclusion of those who raise them
    as an argument against China-WTO isn't. China is a one-party state that
    does not tolerate opposition. It does deny its citizens fundamental
    rights of free speech and religious expression. It does define its
    interests in the world sometimes in ways that are dramatically at odds
    from our own. But the question is not whether we approve or disapprove
    of China's practices. The question is, what's the smartest thing to do
    to improve these practices?
        I believe the choice between economic rights and human rights,
    between economic security and national security, is a false one.
    Membership in the WTO, of course, will not create a free society in
    China overnight or guarantee that China will play by global rules. But
    over time, I believe it will move China faster and further in the right
    direction and certainly will do that more than rejection would. To
    understand how, it's important to understand why China is willing to do
    what it has undertaken to perform in this agreement.
        Over the last 20 years, China has made great progress in building a
    new economy, lifting more than 200 million people out of abject poverty,
    linking so many people through its new communications network that it's
    adding the equivalent of a new Baby Bell every year. Nationwide, China
    has seen the emergence of more than a million nonprofit and social
    organizations and a 2,500 percent explosion of print and broadcast
    media.
        But its economy still is not creating jobs fast enough to meet the
    needs of the people. Only about a third of the economy is private
    enterprise. Nearly 60 percent of the investment and 80 percent of all
    business lending still goes toward state-owned dinosaurs that are least
    likely to survive in the global economy and most likely to be vulnerable
    to corruption.

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        Much of China's economy today still operates under the old theory
    that if only they had shoveled coal into the furnaces faster, the
    Titanic would have stayed afloat. It is ironic, I think, that so many
    Americans are concerned about the impact on the world of a strong China
    in the 21st century. But the danger of a weak China, beset by internal
    chaos and the old nightmares of disintegration, is also real, and the
    leaders of China know this as well.
        So they face a dilemma. They realize that if they open China's
    market to global competition, they risk unleashing forces beyond their
    control: temporary unemployment, social unrest, and greater demands for
    freedom. But they also know that without competition from the outside,
    China will not be able to attract the investment necessary to build a
    modern, successful economy. And the failure to do that could be even
    more destabilizing, with more negative consequences.
        So with this agreement, China has chosen reform, despite the risks.
    It has chosen to overcome a great wall of suspicion and insecurity and
    to engage the rest of the world. The question for the United States,
    therefore, is, do we want to support that choice or reject it, becoming
    bystanders as the rest of the world rushes in. That would be a mistake
    of truly historic proportions.
        You know, as we debate about China here--and we love to do it; it
    absorbs a great deal of our time and energy--it's easy to forget that
    the Chinese leaders and their people are also engaged in a debate about
    us there. And many of them believe that we honestly don't want their
    country to assume a respected place in the world. If China joins the WTO
    but we turn our backs on them, it will confirm their fears.
        All I can say to you is that everything I have learned about China
    as President and before and everything I have learned about human nature
    in over half a century of living now convinces me that we have a far
    greater chance of having a positive influence on China's actions if we
    welcome China into the world community, instead of shutting it out.
        Under this agreement, some of China's most important decisions for
    the first time will be subject to the review of an international body,
    with rules and binding dispute settlement. Now, opponents say this
    doesn't matter; China will just break its promises. Well, any of you who
    follow these WTO matters know that China is not the only person that
    could be accused of not honoring the rulemaking process. If any of you
    happen to be especially concerned about bananas and beef, you could
    probably stand up and give a soliloquy on that. And now we in the United
    States have been confronted with a very difficult decision, because
    they've made a decision that we think is plainly wrong, in an area that
    affects our export economy.
        But I will say this: We're still better off having a system in which
    actions will be subject to rules embraced and judgments passed by 135
    nations. And we're far more likely to find acceptable resolutions to
    differences of opinion in this context than if there is none at all.
        The change this agreement can bring from outside is quite
    extraordinary. But I think you could make an argument that it will be
    nothing compared to the changes that this agreement will spark from the
    inside out in China. By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to
    import more of our products; it is agreeing to import one of democracy's
    most cherished values, economic freedom. The more China liberalizes its
    economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people,
    their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of
    enterprise. And when individuals have the power not just to dream but to
    realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say.
        Already, more and more, China's best and brightest are starting
    their own companies or seeking jobs with foreign-owned companies, where
    generally they get higher pay, more respect, and a better working
    environment. In fits and starts, for the first time, China may become a
    society where people get ahead based on what they know rather than who
    they know. Chinese firms, more and more, are realizing that unless they
    treat employees with respect, they will lose out in the competition for
    top talent. The process will only accelerate if China joins the WTO, and
    we should encourage it because it will lift standards for Chinese
    workers and their expectations.
        There's something even more revolutionary at work here. By lowering
    the barriers that protect state-owned industries, China is speeding the
    process that is removing Government from vast areas of people's lives.
        In the past, virtually every Chinese citizen woke up in an apartment
    or a house owned by the Government, went to work in a factory or a farm
    run by the Government, and read

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    newspapers published by the Government. State-run workplaces also
    operated the schools where they sent their children, the clinics where
    they received health care, the stores where they bought food. That
    system was a big source of the Communist Party's power. Now people are
    leaving those firms. And when China joins the WTO, they will leave them
    faster.
        The Chinese Government no longer will be everyone's employer,
    landlord, shopkeeper, and nanny all rolled into one. It will have fewer
    instruments, therefore, with which to control people's lives. And that
    may lead to very profound change.
        A few weeks ago, the Washington Post had a good story about the
    impact of these changes on the city of Shenyang. Since 1949, most of the
    people of Shenyang have worked in massive state-run industries. But as
    these old factories and mills shut down, people are losing their jobs
    and their benefits. Last year, Beijing announced it was going to be
    awarding bonus checks to Chinese citizens to celebrate China's 50th
    anniversary under communism. But Shenyang didn't have the money to pay,
    and there was a massive local protest.
        To ease tensions, the local government has given the people a
    greater say in how their city is run. On a limited basis, citizens now
    have the right to vote in local elections--not exactly a democracy; the
    party still puts up the candidate and decides who can vote, but it is a
    first step. And it goes beyond Shenyang. Local elections now are held in
    the vast majority of the country's 900,000 villages.
        When asked why, one party official in Shenyang said, ``This is the
    beginning of a process. We realize that in order to improve social
    control, we have got to let the masses have a say.'' Well, sooner or
    later that official will find that the genie of freedom will not go back
    into the bottle. As Justice Earl Warren once said, ``Liberty is the most
    contagious force in the world.''
        In the new century, liberty will spread by cell phone and cable
    modem. In the past year, the number of Internet addresses in China has
    more than quadrupled from 2 million to 9 million. This year, the number
    is expected to grow to over 20 million. When China joins the WTO, by
    2005, it will eliminate tariffs on information technology products,
    making the tools of communication even cheaper, better, and more widely
    available. We know how much the Internet has changed America, and we are
    already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China.
        Now, there's no question China has been trying to crackdown on the
    Internet. Good luck! [Laughter] That's sort of like trying to nail Jell-
    O to the wall. [Laughter] But I would argue to you that their effort to
    do that just proves how real these changes are and how much they
    threaten the status quo. It's not an argument for slowing down the
    effort to bring China into the world; it's an argument for accelerating
    that effort. In the knowledge economy, economic innovation and political
    empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in
    hand.
        Now, of course, bringing China into the WTO doesn't guarantee that
    it will choose political reform. But accelerating the progress, the
    process of economic change will force China to confront that choice
    sooner, and it will make the imperative for the right choice stronger.
    And again I ask, if China is willing to take this risk--and these
    leaders are very intelligent people; they know exactly what they're
    doing--if they're willing to take this risk, how can we turn our backs
    on the chance to take them up on it?
        Now, I want to be clear. I understand that this is not, in and of
    itself, a human rights problem. But still, it is likely to have a
    profound impact on human rights and political liberty. Change will only
    come through a combination of internal pressure and external validation
    of China's human rights struggle. We have to maintain our leadership in
    the latter as well, even as the WTO contributes to the former.
        We sanctioned China under the International Religious Freedom Act
    last year. We're again sponsoring a resolution in the U.N. Human Rights
    Commission condemning China's human rights record this year. We will
    also continue to press China to respect global norms on
    nonproliferation. And we will continue to reject the use of force as a
    means to resolve the Taiwan question, making absolutely clear that the
    issues between Beijing and Taiwan must be resolved peacefully and with
    the assent of the people of Taiwan. There must be a shift from threat to
    dialog across the Taiwan Strait. And we will continue to encourage both
    sides to seize this opportunity after the Taiwan election.
        In other words, we must continue to defend our interests and our
    ideals with candor and consistency. But we can't do that by isolating

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    China from the very forces most likely to change it. Doing so would be a
    gift to the hardliners in China's Government who don't want their
    country to be part of the world, the same people willing to settle
    differences with Taiwan by force, the same people most threatened by our
    alliance with Japan and Korea, the same people who want to keep the
    Chinese military selling dangerous technologies around the world, the
    same people whose first instinct in the face of opposition is to throw
    people in prison. If we want to strengthen their hand within China, we
    should reject the China-WTO agreement.
        Voting against PNTR won't free a single prisoner or create a single
    job in America or reassure a single American ally in Asia. It will
    simply empower the most rigid antidemocratic elements in the Chinese
    Government. It would leave the Chinese people with less contact with the
    democratic world and more resistance from their Government to outside
    forces. Our friends and allies would wonder why, after 30 years of
    pushing China in the right direction, we turned our backs, now that they
    finally appear to be willing to take us up on it.
        I find it encouraging that the people with the greatest interest in
    seeing China change agree with this analysis. The people of Taiwan
    agree. Despite the tensions with Beijing, they are doing everything they
    can to cement their economic ties with the mainland, and they want to
    see China in the WTO.
        The people of Hong Kong agree. I recently received a letter from
    Martin Lee, the leader of Hong Kong's Democratic
    Party, who has spent a lifetime struggling for free elections and free
    expression for his people. He wrote to me that this agreement, and I
    want to quote it, ``represents the best long-term hope for China to
    become a member of good standing in the international community. We fear
    that should ratification fail, any hope for political and legal reform
    process would also recede.'' Martin Lee wants us to vote in favor of
    PNTR.
        Most evangelicals who have missions in China also want China in the
    WTO. They know it will encourage freedom of thought and more contact
    with the outside world.
        Many of the people who paid the greatest price under Chinese
    repression agree, too. Ren Wanding is one of the
    fathers of the Chinese human rights movement. In the late 1970's, he was
    thrown into prison for founding the China Human Rights League. In the
    1980's, he helped lead the demonstration in Tiananmen Square. In the
    1990's, he was thrown in prison yet again. Yet, he says of this deal,
    ``Before, the sky was black. Now it is light. This can be a new
    beginning.''
        For these people, fighting for freedom in China is not an academic
    exercise or a chance to give a speech that might be on television. It is
    their life's work. And for many of them, they have risked their lives to
    pursue it. I believe if this agreement were a Trojan Horse, they would
    be smart enough to see it. They are telling us that it's the right thing
    to do, and they are plainly right.
        So if you believe in a future of greater openness and freedom for
    the people of China, you ought to be for this agreement. If you believe
    in a future of greater prosperity for the American people, you certainly
    should be for this agreement. If you believe in a future of peace and
    security for Asia and the world, you should be for this agreement. This
    is the right thing to do. It's an historic opportunity and a profound
    American responsibility.
        I'll do all I can to convince Congress and the American people to
    support it. And today I ask for your help.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:50 p.m. in the Kenny Auditorium. In his
    remarks, he referred to William R. Brody, president, Johns Hopkins
    University; and Paul Wolfowitz, dean, and Joanne Brainard, executive
    assistant to the associate dean for student affairs, Paul H. Nitze
    School of Advanced International Studies. The President also referred to
    WTO, the World Trade Organization; and PNTR, permanent normal trade
    relations.