Don’t Expect Too Much from China : But congressional debate may illuminate issue

The relationship between the United States and China has taken on a new chill despite the end of the Cold War. U.S.-Sino relations are under strain as Beijing continues to irritate, especially in the two years since the momentous Tian An Men massacre in June, 1989.

The President made a close but correct call in announcing Monday his plans to renew China’s trading privileges. Still, the move to extend most-favored-nation status for one more year is controversial because of Beijing’s checkered human-rights record, arms sales, use of prison labor on exported goods and unfair trade policies.

THE DECISION: MFN would give China the benefits of the lowest tariffs and quotas available under U.S. law to American trading partners. To defuse some of the political fallout, the White House separately issued an executive order to block U.S. exports of high technology equipment with military uses to China, effective immediately.

Bush must formally notify Congress of his MFN move by June 3. Congress has 90 days to block it. Already rancorous opposition to MFN has spawned five different congressional resolutions. They range from an outright revocation of MFN to making renewal privileges conditional on Beijing meeting certain conditions.

The President is not sole maker of U.S. foreign policy. It is important for Congress to weigh the pros and cons. We hope to see a grand discussion, maybe one even as impressive as the grand congressional debate on Iraq last January. Congressional leaders, notably Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Maine), are upset with Beijing’s continuing human-rights abuses and are likely to hammer away at the Administration.

The perception is that Bush has gone soft on China. The President has been criticized for letting his fond memories of his diplomatic posting in Beijing in the mid-1970s obscure his foreign-policy objectivity. Until Sunday, when Bush articulated that he was “trying to chart a moral course through a world of lesser evils,” the President failed to make clear if he had a China policy that was anything more than one big conciliatory nod and wink to the old hard-liners in Beijing.

THE DEBATE: Perhaps a vigorous debate will help Congress recognize, as the President has, that using MFN as an annual negotiating weapon with China is not an effective way to help the Chinese people. Unlike the Soviet Union, where political reform was thought necessary to pave the way for market reforms, official thinking is quite different in China. After all, when Beijing’s market reform initiatives, particularly in the southern part of China, percolated and spilled over in the massive student demonstrations for greater political freedoms in Tian An Men Square two years ago, Beijing brutally squelched that moving show of expression.

The President is right in maintaining MFN status for Beijing. He will take a lot of heat in the short term but in the long term it’s the wise decision. Under the circumstances it’s a mistake to do anything that might serve to re-isolate China.