Salt of the Earth: In session

In session: legislative update
May 2000

AFL-CIO fights Clinton push for China trade normalization
The Clinton administration and its allies in Congress are turning up the heat this month on members of Congress who remain lukewarm on a bill that would remove China from the annual "Most Favored Nation" review process—a survey of human rights and labor conditions which each year threatens to interrupt trade between U.S. and China.

For more information:

NCCB—USCC letter to Congress

"No blank check for China"—AFL-CIO

Human Rights Watch Report on China

Support Democracy in China

Harry Wu testifies on PNTR

China Trade Relations Working Group

A call for business principles of human rights in China

A bill that would establish permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China, removing it once and for all from MFN reviews, enjoys the support of the Republican leadership and U.S. campaign contributors from the business world. Democratic leader Dick Gephardt has said he will vote against the bill.

Supportors say PNTR will promote an economic and political engagement with China that will lead to its political and social maturation. They argue PNTR will also prevent U.S. businesses from being locked out of the Chinese market after China joins the World Trade Organization and a stampede of European and Asian business executives ensues. Clinton and his top aides, who by May 3 still lacked the votes to pass the China trade measure later this month, argue that the decision is as much about global leadership and the fate of Chinese reformers as it is about the interests of American business.

Opponents say that the plan will only embolden Chinese officials to further disregard Western criticism of its labor and human rights record. They argue the annual MFN review remains an effective tool for pressuring Chinese officials to improve the human rights record of the world's most-populous nation.

The AFL-CIO is beginning a strong counter campaign of its own, pressuring pro-labor Congress members to vote PNTR down. Its "Campaign for Global Fairness" makes defeating PNTR for China one of the AFL-CIO's highest priorities.

A statement from the AFL-CIO website read: "Today's world trade system is a corporate-sponsored race to the bottom in which workers and communities are the clear losers. Congress is deciding whether to speed up that race by expanding trade with China, a notorious abuser of human rights, or slow it down . . . . Congress is considering granting China a permanent free trade relationship—even though China has violated every trade agreement it's signed in the past 10 years and acknowledges it won't abide by this proposed agreement; even though our growing trade deficit with China already has cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs; and even though China has repeatedly, flagrantly and brutally violated such basic human rights as freedom of speech, of religion, and of association."

Writing Congress on behalf of the U.S. bishops last month, Bernard Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston and Chairman of the USCC Committee on International Policy, expressed concern over the possible extension of PNTR to China. Law wrote that the USCC has repeatedly urged that certain conditions be met before Clinton extended "most favored nation" trading status to China.

"Particularly, we have urged that the well-documented violations of the Chinese peoples' human rights, and notably their lack of true religious freedom, be seriously addressed and reversed. Sadly, all indications are that the past two years have seen a marked deterioration in the area of human rights and religious freedom."

Acknowledging that the economic and "full integral human development of China" was a goal of great importance, Law argued that the U.S. should nevertheless refrain from granting normal trade relations on a permanent basis "as long as the Chinese leadership steadfastly refuses to abide by the universal norms of human rights protection, . . . Instead, we should retain the valuable option provided by annual review of China's compliance with fundamental norms."

Law complained that neither the Chinese nor the American governments took seriously enough the interest of the USCC and other groups in religious freedom and human rights in China. He argued that one way to remove such concerns from the margins of the current debate on China's trade status would be a strong congressional vote now against the PNTR for China.—Kevin Clarke
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More on PNTR:
Excerpts from Chinese dissident Harry Wu's congressional testimony:
"Congress should . . . put this agreement under a national security microscope. The relationship between a lack of democracy, economic growth, and China's military expansion is a serious one and must be closely examined. The People's Liberation Army, which the United States fought against in Korea and Vietnam, still serves as a major component of this tyrannical regime.

"Faced with the bankruptcy of socialist economy, what the Chinese government wants most is increased foreign investments and guaranteed access to foreign markets, with no threat of bilateral sanctions. This trading status gives just that to the Chinese Communist dictators, increasing their authority and claims to legitimacy.

"The WTO and PNTR deal will give a timely boost to the Chinese Communist leadership. This blood transfusion to an obsolete and dying regime is both unwise and unnecessary. It is a serious mistake when some try to argue that China is becoming a market economy. The Communist Party cannot institute a true market economy.

"The Chinese economic miracle is based on bad loans, a transfer of wealth from the state to Party cadres, and bad accounting—not on true production of wealth. The so-called 'market economy' in China's mainland is actually a 'socialist market economy,' controlled by the government.

"Why do the Western capitalists want to rush into China? China has a population of 1.25 billion. This is a lucrative market. Nobody can turn away from it. But even more importantly, China has a huge cheap and obedient labor force. In this country there is no free trade unions, all the men and women are controlled by one hand—the Communist government.

"We've heard many politicians and business people say that doing business in China helps spread American values and business practices. It is true, that Chinese businessmen are willing to learn how to be more efficient, but U.S. businesses in China will never be allowed to take steps to improve human rights that go against the fundamental policies of the Communist Party."
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