Clinton Opens Fight to Boost China Trade Ties

President Clinton launched one of the most important legislative battles of his presidency Wednesday, sending Congress a long-awaited bill that would permanently throw open China’s huge and rapidly expanding trade relationship with the United States.

In a speech designed to kick off what promises to be a contentious, closely fought debate in Congress, Clinton sketched out the high stakes of the choice at hand and pledged to do everything he can to secure passage.

“It’s a historic opportunity and a profound American responsibility,” he told an audience of policymakers, China specialists, faculty and students at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It represents the most significant opportunity that we have had to create positive change in China since the 1970s, when President Nixon first went there, and later in the decade, when President Carter normalized relations.”

Critics, however, insist that approval of the legislation could be disastrous, opening the door to a huge outflow of U.S. jobs, giving a de facto green light to China’s repressive human rights practices and rewarding Beijing’s aggressive rhetoric concerning such issues as Taiwan.

Congressional debate about such an important and already emotional issue is certain to crackle with intensity in the heat of a general election campaign. Republicans and Democrats alike are talking about casting a final vote by late spring.

In many ways, the looming battle is a test of Clinton’s ability to provide consistent, sustained leadership on a crucial issue before Congress. It is a test he has twice flunked--once in failing to press for presidential authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress cannot amend, then by neglecting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Both were defeated.

At one level, a vote to grant permanent normal trade status to China would be purely economic, a seal of approval for a package of market-opening concessions offered by Beijing in marathon negotiations with the United States that were wrapped up in November. For China, the package of lower trade barriers for U.S. companies and eased constraints on direct investment was simply the price it had to pay to get all-important U.S. backing for its entry into the 135-nation World Trade Organization, the body that sets global trading rules.

Seen purely in these terms, advocates insist, approval is the political equivalent of a no-brainer: The United States will enjoy major openings into a huge and growing market of 1.3 billion people in return for ending the practice of extending China’s normal trade status one year at a time, a congressional ritual for much of the last decade.

Approval is expected to significantly boost U.S.-Chinese trade, which already exceeds $80 billion annually, and help reduce Washington’s $60-billion trade deficit with China.

Trade union leaders, however, believe investment-opening provisions of the accord could trigger a hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs to China’s low-wage labor market. The AFL-CIO formally opposes the legislation and has pressured Democrats in Congress to do the same.

That makes supporting the deal politically awkward for the prospective Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Al Gore.

Some political observers speculated that it was no coincidence that Clinton sent the China trade bill to Congress the day after Gore effectively secured his party’s presidential nomination, thereby minimizing the political impact on his primary battle with Democratic rival Bill Bradley.

But beyond its economic implications, the China trade agreement has political significance that could alter the landscape in several crucial areas for decades to come.

At a geopolitical level, advocates of the bill’s passage paint the choice in stark terms: Should the United States isolate or engage a nation that is fast emerging as the next global power? Should it work with China’s reformers to integrate that nation more firmly into the community of nations or seal it off in an attempt to contain its ambitions and reduce its influence?

These advocates argue that nothing could promote the cause of the free market and democracy in China better than more extensive, more open trade. Much as contact with the West and its ideas contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, so too will such exposure act to weaken the forces of repression in China, they argue.

“By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products, it is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values: economic freedom,” Clinton said. “Will it be the next great capitalist tiger--with the biggest market in the world--or the world’s last great Communist dragon, and a threat to stability in Asia?”

Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), who will lead the battle for approval in the House, expressed a similar view. “The single most positive force for change in China’s 5000-year history is economic reform,” he said. “And this is the most significant vote to strengthen that force.”

Critics see the negative fallout in equally historic terms. To them, it means squandering the most important leverage the United States has to pressure China to improve its human rights record. To advocates of basic worker rights and minimum environmental standards, granting China permanent open trade with the United States along with entry into the WTO could be a crippling blow to the campaign to extend their causes in developing nations.

“We disagree with the president,” said David Smith, director of public policy at the AFL-CIO. “To write China a blank check . . . is exactly the wrong response. It’s the wrong way to do it.”

Clinton clearly has a fight on his hands: A majority of House Democrats are opposed to the accord, and a poll released last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington showed that even upper-income college graduates oppose passage by a 2-1 margin.

Aware that the outcome will say much about his effectiveness as a president and his legacy, Clinton has pledged to work hard for passage. Still, he is laboring to overcome a perception on Capitol Hill that he is only halfheartedly campaigning for the China deal.

At a White House session Tuesday with Senate leaders and key committee members, the president recited a list of recent meetings, speeches and actions in which he promoted permanent normal trade status and WTO membership for China.

Afterward, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who had scolded the Clinton administration for inaction at a hearing earlier in the day, said, “He’s been doing a lot more than I realized.”

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Times staff writers Jonathan Peterson and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.