[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[May 12, 2000]
[Pages 918-920]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Opening Remarks at a Roundtable Discussion in Akron on Permanent Normal 
Trade Relations With China
May 12, 2000

    Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank Congressman 
Sawyer for inviting me here today, and I thank 
all of you for joining us. I know we have people here who have a lot of 
different views on this China issue, but I think that's important. I 
think this is a big part of what

[[Page 919]]

makes our democracy work is that we sit and try to talk through these 
things.
    I've got a few notes here that are specific to Ohio, so I'd like to 
just go over them. Obviously, I've spent a lot of time on this trade 
agreement with China, which was negotiated in order to let them in the 
World Trade Organization. And in order for us to benefit from its 
provisions, we have to grant them normal trading status on a permanent 
basis. For the last 20 years, ever since the formal opening of China in 
1979, we've been doing it on an annual basis. So this--I want to make 
sure we understand, the decision before Congress is whether to go from 
an annual review of their trade relationships with us, to give them 
permanent normal trading status--that is, the same status that virtually 
every other country in the world enjoys.
    Now, it's important to recognize that whatever you think the long-
term consequences are, the short-term consequences are all running in 
our favor, because today we have a very large trade deficit with China, 
and they have very large tariffs and other barriers to our doing 
business with them. What this does is, they take down a lot of their 
barriers to trade and investment with America in return for membership 
in the World Trade Organization, which puts them in the global trading 
system and requires them to follow certain rules and gives us some way 
to appeal if they don't follow those rules. But what they get is 
membership in the club. What they give us are membership dues. That's 
the way you have to look at this. And the access, on purely economic 
terms, is, I think, quite impressive.
    Today, Ohio is the leading State in machinery exports. Two-thirds of 
the industrial workers in this State have jobs that benefit in whole or 
part from exports. In the last 5 years--or from '93 to '98--Akron's 
exports to China have more than doubled. Over the same period, Ohio's 
exports to China also more than doubled. And this involves almost every 
sector of the Ohio economy. It's over $350 million now.
    So if this passes--Secretary Glickman can 
talk about it later as well--there will be huge new markets for 
agriculture, new markets for automobiles, new markets for high-tech 
equipment, new markets for telecommunications equipment. We will be able 
for the first time, for example, to sell cars there or sell auto parts 
there without either having to put a manufacturing plant in China or 
transfer manufacturing technology. That's never been possible before. 
And the tariffs will drop on average in some of these areas, say, from 
25 percent to 10 percent over a period of just a few years. So it's a 
big--it's in every way an economic winner.
    In addition to that, you should know that last April, a year ago, we 
had most of this, but not all this agreement. And I consulted with, 
among others, the AFL-CIO and other people who were concerned about 
whether the economics work out fairly, and they asked me to go back and 
get some new provisions about our trade relations, so that if China 
dumped a lot of products into our market in a certain area, which 
threatened a lot of jobs, we could take immediate and quick action. I 
did that; that's why we didn't get this agreement last April.
    I went back--China has now agreed to give us the right, for more 
than a decade, to move against them on a bilateral basis if there's 
trade injury in America. And the standard of proof we have to make is 
lower than the standard of proof we have to make under our laws for 
every other country in the world. And they agreed to this. They agreed 
to allow us to bring action against them if there's severe dislocation 
of our markets under a standard of proof lower than we have for any 
other country in the world, which is what I was asked to do, and we got 
that, against surges of imports and dumping and things like that.
    So I think it is a good deal economically. But I have to tell you, I 
think it's more important for our national security. Why? Because if we 
let China in the WTO, they will be inside the world trading system. They 
will have a strong interest in working with other people and cooperating 
with other people. They will have a strong disincentive not to have 
trouble with Taiwan, even though there's a lot of tension between the 
two of them, as all of you have heard. And I think we'll be able to 
continue to work with them and relate to them and make progress on a 
whole range of other fronts.
    I think it's quite interesting that most, not all, but most of the 
human rights activists in China, most of the democracy activists in 
China are for this agreement. There was a big article on the cover of 
one of our--I think the Washington Post, yesterday on the front page, 
where they'd gone and actually interviewed dissidents in China who were 
severely alienated from the Government, and everybody they interviewed

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said, ``Please do this. If you don't do this, America won't have any 
influence over the Chinese. You'll never be able to help us. We'll never 
be able to move forward. We'll be isolated; we'll be more repressed.''
    Martin Lee, the long-time democracy advocate 
in Hong Kong--who can't even go to China, has never met the Premier of 
China, for example, Zhu Rongji--in America last 
week said, ``You have to do this. If you don't vote for this, you have 
no influence. You can't help me. Nothing will happen. And the chances of 
something bad happening in China will be much greater.'' The President-
elect of Taiwan, who has previously advocated 
independence from China, wants us to vote for this.
    Now, there are people in China who don't want this to pass. The most 
militant elements in the military, the most traditional elements, the 
people who control the state-owned industries, they don't want this to 
pass because they know if they open up China, their control will be 
undermined. And in one of the great ironies of this whole trade debate, 
I've never--it's an unusual thing to see that some of the most 
progressive people in our country are taking a position that is 
supported by only the most regressive people in their country. Because 
they know that isolation helps them to maintain control and the status 
quo.
    I honestly believe this is by far the most important national 
security vote we will take this year. I think if we pass it, it will 
strengthen and stabilize our position in Asia and reduce the likelihood 
of conflict, even war, there for a decade. I think if we don't pass it, 
it will increase the chances that something bad will happen.
    That's not a threat, and goodness knows if I didn't prevail, I would 
pray that I was wrong. I can only tell you that I've been doing this a 
long time. I believe I know what I'm talking about, and I think that 
it's very, very important.
    And so, for whatever it's worth, that's why we're here. And 
Tom was good enough to get this panel together so 
we could just have a conversation. That's what this is about, and I want 
to hear from you. And I'm sure after this is over, all our friends in 
the media will want to hear what you said to me. [Laughter] And you feel 
free to tell them. But I think we ought to start now and have that 
conversation.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. in a classroom at the Ohio Army/
National Guard Facility. In his remarks, he referred to Hong Kong 
Democratic Party Chair Martin Lee; and President-elect Chen Shui-bian of 
Taiwan.