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To: Boplicity who wrote (67858)	2/24/2000 1:52:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

Good Listen> biz.yahoo.com

To: Boplicity who wrote (67858)	2/24/2000 2:07:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Clinton, businesses push China deal By Rex Nutting, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 1:50 PM ET Feb 24, 2000 Washington Calendar Capitol Report WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- Lobbyists for U.S. business say they aren't worried about a series of setbacks in the campaign to bring China fully into the global capitalist trading system. Even so, President Clinton is promising "a full-court press from my administration" to win approval in Congress for a new bilateral trade deal with China. "We can't underestimate how hard it will be" to win, Clinton said in a speech to the Business Council. He was expected to elaborate on the theme in a speech later Thursday at the Wharton School of Business. Clinton and the lobbyists are pushing for Congress to approve the trade pact, an essential step in China's accession to the World Trade Organization. As part of the package, Congress would be expected to grant China permanent normal trade relation status. "We're going to win because the merits are so phenomenally strong," Bob Kapp, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, told CBS.MarketWatch.com. "Saying 'no' to PNTR [permanent normal trade relations] is tantamount to unilateral disarmament," Kapp said. Kapp said spring is "Lusitania season" in Washington, when "great ships sail into perilous waters." Read more of Kapp's opinion. In the past week, China trade relations have suffered these setbacks: China threatened to use force against Taiwan if anti-Beijing politicians win upcoming elections. China has delayed approval of a license from Qualcomm (QCOM: news, msgs) for wireless phone technology. See related story. The European Union has broken off negotiations with China on their bilateral trade deal. Read more about it. Vice President Al Gore gave union members a vague promise that he'd try to make the China deal more favorable to workers. The AFL-CIO has kicked off a major campaign to defeat the China trade agreement. Read about the opposition. Kapp's allies are putting up a fight. "Our CEOs are working the issue hard," said John Schachter, a spokesman for the Business Roundtable, the largest pro-business lobby group. "We expect there to be a vote and we expect to win," Schachter said. The Business Roundtable has its own grassroots campaign in 20 states and 90 key congressional districts to pressure members of Congress to back the China agreement. "We've had the annual vote on normal trade relations every year and we've won it every year," Schachter said. "The case for permanent status is even stronger." Lobbyists and flacks are paid to spin. Others who favor more more normal trade relations with the last communist power aren't so sanguine. "You're going to lose this," Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan lectured U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky at a hearing Wednesday. "It's going to go down in history as the first major loss in more than 60 years or 70 years ... since Cordell Hull." Moynihan was referring specifically to what he sees as lack of commitment from the administration to use its full weight in favor of a bilateral trade deal Barshefsky brokered with Beijing last fall. Barshefsky assured Moynihan that the administration -- even candidate Gore -- is firmly behind the deal. She wouldn't, however, commit to a timetable for bringing the trade deal to a vote. Six Democratic senators wrote to the leadership Wednesday, urging a quick vote on the issue. The problem will come in the House, where a coalition of left and right members defeated the last major trade proposal -- fast-track negotiating authority -- in 1997. Since that defeat, the administration has tried to bring union and environmental foes of "free trade" on board by promising to include their concerns in future negotiations. But as the protests in Seattle last December showed, opposition to the WTO and to free trade isn't so easy to co-opt. Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief for CBS MarketWatch.