Say No To China

By Jim Hoagland
The Washington Post, 21 May 2000

Appeals to greed and fear should provide a quick victory to those that deploy them in any argument decided by this Congress. But Clinton administration appeals to both come up short in its current lobbying onslaught. The White House enters the home stretch on trade with China fighting for the souls of about 40 undecided House members who have had the good sense, or the mercenary instinct, to resist rushing to judgment based on the administration’s flawed case.

Despite the melodramatic, now-or-never pitch of a president who desperately wants history to judge him no less a leader than Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger or Jimmy Carter, Congress should defer removal of the legislative threat to use trade restrictions on China.

The House is to vote at midweek on granting permanent normal trading relations to China as part of that nation’s bid to join the World Trade Organization. The administration’s lobbyist-in-chief, Commerce Secretary William Daley, acknowledges the decision will turn on a handful of undecideds.

Those swing voters should keep one thought in mind: This is not a vote about how China’s government treats its own citizens. That result is unhappily beyond the reach of this kind of trade agreement. It is a vote about how China’s leaders treat Americans. Trade is one important piece of that equation. But the key question ultimately is whether this vote shores up America’s national security and decreases the chances of conflict with Asia’s dominant nuclear power. In the circumstances that have unfolded since the White House reached its WTO agreement with China, the answer to this question has to be no.

Since Congress took up the trade issue, China’s leaders have gone out of their way to flout and debase the administration’s promises of positive change the deal is supposed to bring. They have stepped up their strategic challenge to American leadership abroad in a particularly menacing manner, rattling rockets at Taiwan during its elections and vowing more recently to do whatever is necessary to maintain Beijing’s ability to hit American cities with nuclear missiles. That threat came in a May 10 interview given by China’s chief arms negotiator, Sha Zukang, to The New York Times.

China has also been particularly aggressive in resisting international cooperation on nuclear arsenals in this month’s review conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, according to U.N. conference delegates.

This is more than hard-liners getting in their last growls to save face. China’s leaders are telling their public in word and deed to ignore whatever Clinton says to Congress. They are in charge and will continue to turn back American efforts to undermine their Leninist monopoly on politics and power. America, primarily because of its protection of Taiwan, remains the enemy, permanent normal trading relations or not.

The more Clinton, Daley, national security adviser Sandy Berger and others insist that China is more open today than it was two decades ago, the more Jiang Zemin’s regime shows its subjects and the world that China is not even as open today as it was six months ago. It is in fact less open politically today than it was in 1986.

The timing of the current harsh crackdowns on the Falun Gong religious movement, democracy activists and intellectuals is no accident. Jiang shows he can chew gum and walk with his heavy stick at the same time. He demonstrates that he does not accept the values and hopes the Clintonites say will infuse this expanded trade relationship. Beijing portrays this vote in Congress as a reward that Americans dare not refuse the Communists, however they behave. Jiang uses greed and fear to maintain power at home.

It is not surprising that he expects these elemental motivators to work in Washington as well.

Greed alone might have done it. The economic aspects of the U.S.-China WTO accord are hard to argue against. But like a guilt-ridden suspect drawing attention to incriminating material, the administration insists on adding national security to the debate: A vengeful, menacing China would work to circumscribe U.S. options and harm U.S. interests if rejected on WTO, Berger argues.

The problem is that China acted that way even as Congress began its debate.

Using the national security standard, the House should force the administration to pull this legislation back to avoid defeat, and to work to get the strategic context right, as well as the trade details. That would be more valuable legacy for Clinton than letting China unilaterally dictate the meaning of America’s acceptance of this accord.