The Chinese appear to be their own worst enemy these days. Congress has to decide soon whether to grant China permanent normal trade status. It ought to be a no-brainer. The United States has everything to gain and nothing to lose.
China's stepped-up belligerence toward Taiwan has given pause even to normal supporters of trade. Beijing recently issued an 11,000-word white paper warning that it would use military force against the island if Taiwanese leaders continued delaying negotiations to reunite with the mainland. Most likely, this was a bluff timed to intimidate candidates in Taiwan's March 18 election. Experts agree China lacks the ability to invade Taiwan without suffering major losses.But the white paper has added a new set of skeptics to a list that already included labor unions, environmentalists and trade organizations. Each of these sees a danger in granting permanent trade status with China. And each, in its own way, is wrong.
For the first time ever, the Clinton administration has negotiated a deal that requires major concessions from the Chinese, and the Chinese have agreed to the terms because they will lead to membership in the World Trade Organization. Not only do the terms call for opening the mainland to new areas of trade, including direct foreign investment in telecommunications, they bind the Chinese to submit to arbitrated dispute settlements.
As U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky told a group of editorial writers in Washington last week, Congress would hurt only the United States by rejecting this deal. That is because China is likely to agree to the terms anyway in order to join the WTO. Then every nation except the United States would take advantage of the new, favorable conditions.
For more than two decades now, Congress has voted each year to renew its trade status with China. If, as opponents claim, the yearly vote is leverage to push change on the mainland, it hasn't worked. That is not to say, however, that trade won't lead to changes. For instance, the number of Internet users in China has grown from 2 million in 1999 to 9 million this year, and it is projected to hit 20 million by next year. The Internet is all about free expression and the exchange of ideas and information. Allowing U.S. companies to invest in mainland telecommunications would quite naturally lead to more openness.
To isolate China would be to encourage no progress at all.
The Clinton administration must take some blame for inadvertently encouraging China to issue the white paper. The president's clumsy attempt in 1998 to explain what had always been a conveniently nebulous one-China policy may have emboldened China's leaders. Now the administration has a tremendous lobbying challenge on its hands. Somehow, it must convince Americans of a fundamental, yet difficult to understand, truth: Normalized trade with China is the best hope for righting the wrongs that always seem to get in the way of U.S.-Sino relations.