FYI:
IN WASHINGTON, THE rhetoric will grow more heated in the weeks leading up to the vote: Will approval of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) only encourage a regime that represses workers and jails political dissidents and religious believers? Will the Clinton administration?s trade deal with China cost American workers their jobs?
LOWERING TRADE BARRIERS
Last November the administration concluded an accord with Beijing that lowers tariffs and other Chinese barriers to American companies. Congress must vote on PNTR because the rules of the 136-member World Trade Organization require that member nations give each other unconditional trade privileges.
Under a 1974 trade law designed to apply to the Soviet Union, Congress has voted every year since 1980 to renew what used to be called ?most favored nation? trade status, now referred to as ?normal trade relations.? By granting China PNTR, Congress would give up that annual vote.
With China almost certain to enter the WTO whether or not Congress approves PNTR, the question is whether American firms would face discrimination in China if PNTR fails.
In purely economic terms, Chinese trade with the U.S. is small, considering the rhetoric swirling around the issue. U.S. trade with China (total exports plus imports) amounts to only 1 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product.
But China?s trade with the world has quadrupled since 1980 and exporters ? from U.S. telecom firms to pork producers in Iowa ? want to secure their access to that market.
Arrayed on the anti-PNTR side are environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, who decry the lack of environmental protections in last November?s trade deal.
LABOR?S CLOUT
By far the most powerful anti-PNTR force is organized labor. In a joint press conference with Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope in Washington on Tuesday, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said, ?U.S. workers are being forced to compete with prison labor and sweatshop labor in China, at wage rates as low as 13 cents an hour.? ?U.S. workers are being forced to compete with prison labor and sweatshop labor in China, at wage rates as low as 13 cents an hour.?
? JOHN SWEENEY President, AFL-CIO
But the biggest categories of goods the U.S. imports from China are toys, sporting goods, and footwear ? the products of labor-intensive industries that began leaving the United States decades ago.
Unlike the campaign over apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s or non-union grapes in the 1960s, there is little sign of a grass-roots boycott effort by Americans who are outraged by the Beijing regime. Indeed Americans vote with their credit cards every day and the record shows brisk consumer demand for imports from China. Last year Americans bought $81.7 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Whether or not many American union members are now losing jobs to Chinese workers, ?American workers do feel the impact of trade with China every day of the week,? says Thea Lee, assistant director for international economics for the AFL-CIO. ?When American workers sit down at the bargaining table and try to organize a union in an unorganized factory, they are told by employers ?well, we could always move to China.? ?
But Frank Vargo, vice president for international affairs with the National Association of Manufacturers, contends that ?you don?t improve human rights and labor rights in China by isolating China. The best way to continue improving human rights in China is by engaging them, by getting more Americans into China, by getting more economic liberty ? which brings political liberty.?
No one has been more eloquent in making the case for PNTR than Clinton himself: ?Voting against PNTR won?t free a single prisoner, or create a single job in America?. It will simply empower the most rigid anti-democratic elements in the Chinese government,? Clinton recently said.
LAME-DUCK CLINTON
But Alan Reuther, the top lobbyist for the United Auto Workers union, says that the PNTR struggle is not like Clinton?s previous efforts to pass NAFTA in 1993 or ?fast track? trade negotiating authority in 1997.
?One difference is that President Clinton is obviously a lame duck. It?s more difficult for him to promise goodies to members because obviously members know Clinton isn?t going to be around next year and can?t really deliver.?
Meanwhile, Vice President Al Gore, who won the AFL-CIO?s endorsement last year for his presidential bid, seems to be on the sidelines so far, even though he has pledged he will lobby members of Congress to pass PNTR.
?My impression is the vice president is very busy running for president and he?s pre-occupied with his campaign as he should be,? says Reuther. (Unlike the AFL-CIO, the UAW has not endorsed Gore?s candidacy.)
Last July, 260 members of the House ? including 110 Democrats ? voted for a one-year extension of normal trade relations with China.
But ?the politics on permanent NTR is very different than the politics on the annual one-year renewals,? says Reuther, pointing to a group of 15 Democratic members who have voted for previous one-year NTR extensions but who now publicly oppose PNTR. ?We have many more members who have privately told us they won?t support permanent trading status even though they?ve been for the one-year extension. We fully expect that two-thirds of the Democratic caucus in the House is going to vote to oppose PNTR.? ?You don?t improve human rights and labor rights in China by isolating China.?
? FRANK VARGO National Association of Manufacturers
Leading the Democratic effort to scuttle PNTR is Democratic House Whip David Bonior. For the moment, Democratic House Leader Dick Gephardt has maintained a hands-off neutrality.
Caught in the middle are Democrats who hope to have labor union support in their re-election efforts this fall but who also see the benefits of expanded U.S. exports to China.
RECORD OF COMPLIANCE
When Congress debates PNTR after its Easter recess, one argument sure to be used by China?s critics is Beijing?s poor record on abiding by past bilateral trade agreements with the U.S.
Arthur Waldron, professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania and director of Asian studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says, ?I would insist on making the agreements that we already have work. For instance, we have extensive agreements on intellectual property with China, and these are not being enforced. It?s probably pointless to conclude a whole new set of agreements ? which are also not going to be enforced.?
Waldron says China?s economic reformers are not political reformers.
?There?s no political reform going on in China right now,? Waldron says. ?The topic of political reform is now under attack. There are lots of Chinese intellectuals who are in favor of political reform. These people are now being removed from their jobs and (Chinese president) Jiang Zemin speaks out regularly against political reform.?
Waldron questions the value of a trade deal with a regime whose stability is threatened by massive worker discontent. He cites recent reports of rioting by 20,000 laid-off miners in northern China. Worker discontent could lead to the demise of the current regime, Waldron says, adding, ?this is something our administration doesn?t take seriously enough. The potential for instability is real. I don?t think the administration has a ?Plan B.?? |
