America Must Say No to China on MFN

This week marks the eighth anniversary of China’s brutal repression of the students in Tiananmen Square.

Congress soon will review President Clinton’s request that China continue to receive preferential trade status, known as most-favored-nation. The question is whether our international economic and foreign policies further or undermine our national interests. Our current policy isn’t working; it’s simply validating the status quo. We must revoke China’s MFN status.

America began with the most revolutionary statement ever put on paper: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Freedom is part of the very fabric of what it means to be human, and that is true in every corner of the globe.

For brave men and women in China, freedom is more than fine words and easy rhetoric. They have sacrificed their personal liberty and, too often, even their lives for it.

Hearing the stories of those who struggle for human rights, we instinctively know that America must be on their side. But promoting human rights is also in the vital national security and economic interests of the United States. In the end, adherence to our ideals is the most pragmatic policy.

Human rights is, at its heart, about the rule of law. A government that can arbitrarily violate the liberty of its people cannot be trusted to abide by the rules of contract or the rights of companies.

But the economic issue is not that narrow. Political rights are linked to economic rights. Our goal is a world of middle-class consumers eager to buy our products, not a world where low-priced imports flood our market, depressing wages in industries and sectors that have to compete with those imports. We can’t compete against workers who have no rights to demand higher wages. We can’t compete with slave labor.

Many have argued that participating in China’s economy--simply being there--would yield results. So far, no real progress has been made. We now hear the same arguments for constructive engagement with China that we heard about South Africa. But nothing fundamental changed in South Africa until sanctions came.

The United States has no business playing “business as usual” with a Chinese regime that persecutes leaders of Christian, Muslim and many other faiths, prevents tens of millions from practicing their religion, sells the most lethal weapons to the most dangerous of nations, profits from slave labor and engages in the evil of forced abortion.

Millions of Chinese toil away in slave labor camps, many producing products sold to unsuspecting Americans. Walk through your local toy store and you will find “Spunky the Dog” and “Princess the Cat,” toys produced by businesses run by the People’s Liberation Army--the force that runs the Chinese gulag, the force that gunned down young men and women in Tiananmen Square.

Recently I met with human rights activist Harry Wu, who had been imprisoned in the Chinese labor camps. Wu asked: “If America knew that a gulag or concentration camp existed today, you would speak out. Why is America silent now?”

Our trade policy with China has failed on moral and economic grounds. There is nothing “free” about our trade with China. This year, the U.S. trade deficit with China may exceed $50 billion. The Chinese send more than a third of their exports to us while less than 2% of our products go there. China cannot afford to jeopardize this market. But the Chinese simply do not think we have the courage to act.

China has said to many of our companies that if they want to sell there, they must produce there. And to produce there, we must transfer our technological know-how to them. We’re being blackmailed into helping China become an economic powerhouse.

Mild condemnations aren’t enough. Actions speak louder than words, and the Clinton administration’s actions, and its words, have been far too weak on China.

We must have the courage to act and revoke China’s most-favored-nation privilege and begin to reassert our leadership. If we don’t, we will have abandoned our basic principles and jeopardized our future leadership and prosperity.

America must not be silent now.