U.S.-China: Best to Keep on Trading : But Clinton also asks for real reform by Beijing
President Clinton has issued an executive order approving China’s most-favored-nation trading status for another year but with a notable caveat. Beijing is on notice: Conditions may be attached to renewal of MFN next year if its human rights record does not improve.
It might seem that the stance taken by Clinton--who in the presidential campaign accused George Bush of “coddling” the Chinese regime--is too accommodating. But his carrot-and-stick approach--though the stick is more like a twig--goes further in embracing possible conditions than his predecessor did. Bush repeatedly rejected congressional efforts to put conditions on MFN renewal after June, 1989, when Chinese authorities turned guns on citizens in Tian An Men Square.
The executive order states that the secretary of state will decide whether to renew China’s MFN status by July 3, 1994, on the basis of these issues: human rights, treatment of political prisoners, protection of Tibet’s heritage, freedom of emigration, nuclear non-proliferation and the use of prison labor.
Clinton’s executive-order approach has the virtue of flexibility and, to some extent, should keep congressional showboating out of the issue. It may also ward off the protectionists in Congress. The order makes no new demands but asks Beijing to live up to provisions it has already agreed to.
Clinton is taking a pragmatic position on increasingly complicated trade with China. Many U.S. products are made there. TWA, for example, will soon fly five Douglas Aircraft jets that were assembled in China. Beijing’s massive infrastructure plans and projects in telecommunications, power and transportation could mean big business for U.S. firms like Motorola, Boeing and AT&T.;
As in other Asian countries, economic liberalization could pave the way for political liberalization. Change in China will occur faster with a greater presence of outsiders. Beijing also is bidding to host the Olympic Games in 2000. To make China a better prospect, authorities are doing some serious image polishing.
But Beijing should not believe that carefully timed human rights gestures are enough. Xu Wenli, 49, one of China’s longest-serving political prisoners, was freed this week. He was the sixth well-known political prisoner to be given early release this year. Yet only a day before Xu’s release China defended its crackdown on protests in Tibet despite official U.S. and French expressions of concern over the heavy use of tear gas to break up a large anti-Chinese demonstration.
MFN helps China’s world stature. The political message in possible conditions next year is that the Chinese people should benefit--and not just in the pocketbook.
