Hong Kong to Push Normal U.S.-China Ties

Gov. Chris Patten said Monday that during his scheduled visit to Washington next week, he will plunge into the U.S. debate over policy toward China by lobbying personally for preservation of normal Sino-U.S. trade ties.

Any action by Washington to end China’s most-favored-nation trade status would not only cause economic damage to the United States, China and Hong Kong but would also harm efforts to promote political liberalization in China, Patten told a group of U.S. reporters here.

“I will be arguing that, in my judgment, open trade helps to promote more open societies, as well as more successful and prosperous societies,” Patten said.

Patten will meet with key members of Congress and with Clinton Administration officials, possibly including the President. He also is slated to appear at a number of public forums. He arrives Friday in Los Angeles, where he will meet with Hong Kong officials and spend the night before heading for a week in Washington and New York.

For six months, Patten has been engaged in an acrimonious dispute with Beijing over his plans for democratic reforms in the British colony before its scheduled 1997 reversion to Chinese sovereignty. The plans call for broader voter participation in Hong Kong’s 1995 legislative elections.

Last week, Britain and China opened talks on how to conduct the elections. Beijing has promised that if the elections are conducted according to rules it approves, the legislators may remain in office until 1999.

Patten said Monday that the talks “have started in a businesslike way, but we’ve got some arduous choices and difficult problems on a long agenda.”

In Washington, a bill attaching conditions to renewal of China’s most-favored-nation status was introduced last week in Congress. A similar bill last year was vetoed by President George Bush, but President Clinton is believed to be much more likely to sign such a bill.

Most U.S. trading partners have most-favored-nation status, which allows a country’s goods to enter the American market under the lowest available tariffs. In China’s case, this status must be renewed annually.