U.S. Negotiators Conduct Harmony From Discord

For U.S. negotiators, peace and quiet were hard to come by during their six harrowing days trying to land a deal to bring China into the World Trade Organization.

At one crucial moment, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and National Economic Council Chairman Gene Sperling hurriedly repaired to the waiting room outside a ladies’ room on the 11th floor of China’s trade ministry so they could telephone President Clinton. At the White House, the president was in the shower, and his national security advisor, Sandy Berger, had to get him out.

Across the distance of more than 8,000 miles, Barshefsky observed, “we were talking from bathroom to bathroom.”

In a telephone interview Monday from Hong Kong, a few hours after they had signed the agreement with China, Barshefsky and Sperling recounted the topsy-turvy, sometimes comical, process by which the deal was made.

They revealed that they almost left Beijing without a deal only a few hours before the agreement was reached. They disclosed that Premier Zhu Rongji had served as a “mediator” and had played a crucial role in bringing the negotiations to a conclusion.

And the two top American officials recounted how they kept themselves going by choosing American songs each morning that reflected their mood in dealing with the Chinese.

At the low point of the talks, Barshefsky chose the old hit that goes, “Please release me, let me go.” On another day, America’s top trade negotiator and Clinton’s leading economic advisor serenaded each other with a bastardized version of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”: “What you need, baby, I ain’t gonna give.”

Barshefsky and Sperling represented an odd couple for the trade talks.

Barshefsky had served as America’s lead negotiator last spring and had worked out a tentative deal with Zhu, the Chinese premier, for China’s entry into the WTO. But at the time, the president backed away.

Back then, Sperling had been among the advisors (along with then-Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin) who advised Clinton not to accept Barshefsky’s deal immediately. These opponents argued that the political climate for China issues in Washington at the time was poisonous and that as a result, Congress might not approve the deal.

So this month, when the United States and China decided to try again to close a WTO deal, Clinton sent both Barshefsky and Sperling to Beijing.

“I felt very strongly that Gene should be on this trip,” Barshefsky said Monday. She said the Chinese were “startled” that the president’s chief economic advisor was sitting directly in the talks.

In the first days after they reached Beijing, however, the talks went nowhere.

“It seemed as though there was uncertainty as to what [the Chinese side] could appropriately offer,” Barshefsky said. Barshefsky and Sperling had been scheduled to leave Beijing on Saturday morning. Instead, they were brought into their first meeting with Zhu, who is regarded as the regime’s leading proponent of economic reforms.

After that, the American delegation saw what Sperling called “significant movement” from the Chinese side. China showed a greater willingness to accept the American provisions to be able to invoke U.S. laws against the dumping of low-cost products from China.

But they were soon at loggerheads again, over issues such as how much American firms can invest in China’s telecommunications industry.

Zhu and other Chinese officials made clear that some issues were “politically impossible” for China. One of these was that China would not allow American firms to own a majority share, 51%, in China’s telecommunications industry or some other industries.

So the Americans sought to work around these roadblocks. “It seemed to us, if 51% [American ownership] was impossible, 50% must be possible,” Barshefsky explained. She maintained that each time the U.S. delegation went along with the issues China called politically sensitive, the Americans obtained other Chinese concessions as indirect compensation.

Barshefsky and Sperling spoke directly to Clinton six or seven times during the talks--usually over a secure telephone, but on at least one occasion over an open phone line, so that the Chinese might overhear how unhappy the American officials were with what China was offering.

Sperling insisted that the U.S. delegation had “authority to walk”--that is, to leave the negotiations and to fly home without an agreement. In fact, he went on, “I thought we were walking” Monday morning.

Barshefsky, Sperling and the other Americans packed their bags early Monday and sent them to the airport, in a signal to the Chinese they were preparing to go home. Soon afterward, they were summoned to meet again with Zhu.

They described Zhu’s behavior as “Solomonic.” Sperling said he had displayed “a mediator’s instinct, not a negotiator’s instinct.”

Within hours after that second meeting with the Chinese premier, Barshefsky and Sperling agreed to the final terms of the WTO deal.

And what song did the two Americans choose as the theme for their final day in Beijing?

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Barshefsky said. In other words: Nothing was going to keep the Americans in Beijing even one more day.