Us House Backs Clinton On China Mfn

The US House of Representatives voted by a large majority on Tuesday to support President Bill Clintons decision to renew Chinas Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trade status for another year.

In a vote of 259 to 173, the House rejected a measure sponsored by Representative Gerald Solomon, a New York Republican, that would have overturned Clintons decision to maintain normal trade relations with China.

Clinton thanked lawmakers for their support and said continuing MFN does not mean an endorsement of all of Chinas policies.

When we disagree with China, such as on human rights and religious freedom, we will continue to speak out candidly and clearly, Clinton said in a statement following the vote.

 

While weve felt all along that revoking normal trade relations would only exacerbate our differences, we are committed to work closely with Congress and others to defend and advance our interests with China as we strengthen our cooperation, he added.

But opponents of maintaining Chinas trade privileges said the vote, coming just one week before Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule, was ill-timed.

I am sad and disappointed that the US Congress would extend a blank check to Beijing literally days before the handover of Hong Kong, said Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, which helped spearhead a grassroots campaign against extending normal trade privileges to China.

The Clinton administrations policy of engagement has been a failure, Bauer said in a statement. Free trade is important. But freedom of worship, freedom of speech and the right to just wages for labour are higher American ideals.

Tuesdays vote was narrower than the 286 to 141 vote last year to support China MFN renewal, but it still reflected a sizable margin of support for the president.

During more than four hours of debate, lawmakers expressed concern about human rights abuses in China, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the fate of Hong Kong after the British colony returns to Chinese rule on July 1 and allegations that Beijing tried to influence US elections through illegal campaign contributions.

They also pointed to the huge $40 billion US trade deficit with China, which they said was likely to widen to $53 billion this year.

But lawmakers were swayed by arguments that revoking Chinas MFN status would do nothing to stop human rights abuses and could in the end work against US commercial and security interests in the region as well as hurt Hong Kong at a time when it needed US support the most.

Denying MFN to China would threaten 70,000 jobs in Hong Kong, House Ways and Means trade subcommittee chairman Philip Crane, an Illinois Republican, argued. At this extraordinarily delicate time, the people of Hong Kong deserve our steady and strong support for renewing Chinas MFN status.

House ways and means committee Chairman Bill Archer, Republican of Texas, argued that ending normal trade relations with China would put in place a policy of unilateral confrontation with China that would have no effect on Beijings behaviour.

Instead, such a policy would disengage our government from a leadership role in the region and would remove the positive influence that our business community has in China, Archer argued. Once China joined the World Trade Organisation, he said, the US should be in a position to grant China permanent MFN treatment.

Under US law, the President must decide each year whether to grant China MFN, and Congress has the right to disapprove his decision. Without MFN, duties on imports from China would soar to an average of 44 per cent from a current level of about six per cent. MFN status is enjoyed by almost every other country. Only a handful of countries are denied the trade privilege.

Efforts to overrule the president on China MFN has failed every year since the 1989 crack-down on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.