The Big Picture on China

The annual decision on whether Washington will continue normal trade relations with China is fraught with more doubt than usual this year because of this week’s 10th anniversary of the slaughter of Chinese dissidents in Tiananmen Square and the recent friction over Beijing’s alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets and the NATO bombing of China’s embassy in Yugoslavia. China’s human rights record is abysmal, but clearly the transformation of Chinese society in the past two decades is significant and owes its drive to the opening of Beijing’s economy to the outside world. Congress, in considering President Clinton’s request to continue China’s trade privileges and the larger issue of China’s application for membership in the World Trade Organization, should remember that.

The Tiananmen protests drew a million people--workers, civil servants, students and others--to Beijing and sparked civil unrest in dozens of cities across the country. They were brutally suppressed by tanks and gunfire, but they shook the Communist Party leadership and left a significant mark on Beijing’s policies. Then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, speaking to party officials just days after Tiananmen, recognized that the party’s relationship with the people was damaged and had to change. He chose economic development as the basis for mending the wounds of the population. When he handed the party leadership to Jiang Zemin, Deng left instructions to “make the people satisfied” by cracking down on corruption and delivering economic development.

Now it is economic development that is transforming the political and social face of China, for better or worse. The Communist leadership is losing its monopoly on information as tens of millions of Chinese--especially the elite living in cities--acquire access to the Internet and satellite TV from abroad. Administrative laws have been changed to allow aggrieved citizens to sue the government, and multiple candidates are vying for local posts. These are early but significant changes triggered by economic development.

Opponents of granting China “most-favored-nation” privileges, now called simply normal trade relations, will argue that Washington should not deal with a government that suppresses political dissent or steals American nuclear secrets. These are serious charges, but imposing draconian tariffs on Chinese imports would not change Beijing’s policies. It would only hurt U.S. interests.

The alleged Chinese spying on U.S. nuclear technology, as damnable as it may be, is, above all, a U.S. problem. As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) put it, “The scandal is not that they spied on us, but that we let them.”

When Washington takes it on itself to blast China for its human rights record, all it does is foment anti-American sentiment in China and helps Beijing deflect domestic public attention from its repressive policies. In contrast, by taking China to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, as it did last April, the United States makes China’s human rights record an issue for the global community, one that Beijing cares about. Washington failed to win a U.N. condemnation of China, but it has made its point.

Admitting China into the World Trade Organization, in addition to opening the country’s vast consumer markets, would “globalize” Beijing’s trading practices by making it answerable to all WTO members. Moreover, to earn its membership in the WTO, China will have to make significant market-opening concessions to its trading partners. The U.S., which is already open to most Chinese imports, only stands to gain from China’s entry into the WTO.

China sees its full membership in the multilateral system as an important recognition of its growing power on the global scene. All countries, including the United States, would benefit from China’s participation.