New China Trade Oversight Offered by White House

The heated debate over normalizing economic ties with China took a sharp turn Wednesday as U.S. officials embraced extraordinary new ways to monitor China’s behavior on trade, an approach that advocates say could ultimately win congressional passage of the measure.

According to some estimates, 150 Republicans and more than 70 Democrats in the House may ultimately support permanent, normal trade relations with China if the proposed oversight methods take effect. That support, if it holds, would lead to victory when the vote takes place this month.

The White House on Wednesday unveiled an unusual trade-monitoring plan, featuring a “rapid response” team of specialists who would review China’s actions and a new post of deputy assistant secretary for China in the Commerce Department who would scrutinize Beijing’s adherence to its trade pledges.

“We will relentlessly monitor and enforce China’s compliance,” said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. She said the plan calls for the “largest monitoring and enforcement for any agreement ever.”

The White House plan dovetails with a separate effort by Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), who has proposed a new watchdog commission to monitor China’s conduct on human rights, replacing the annual congressional debate that will vanish if China is granted normal trade ties.

Until now, Republican leaders have been aloof or even hostile to the Levin idea. But in a noteworthy shift, they have begun making much friendlier remarks about his approach.

Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, praised both the administration and Levin. He called Levin’s efforts “very constructive” and said he was willing to consider all such proposals in the hunt to secure the 218 votes needed to pass the trade bill in the 435-member House.

Although he would have preferred a “clean bill,” Archer said, in what appears to be significant change of course, “I am willing to look at proposals which would ensure victory.”

The China trade bill is widely expected to prevail in the Senate but looms as the most contentious showdown of the year in the House, where organized labor has fiercely pressured Democrats to oppose the measure.

Indeed, the administration’s oversight proposal drew scorn from Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), the second-ranking House Democrat, who leads the opposition to the trade bill. Critics say they still have enough votes to kill the measure in the House, where many Democrats do not wish to run afoul of organized labor in an election year.

“This latest proposal . . . is a desperate gesture to sell this flawed China deal that is floundering here in Congress,” Bonior said in a written statement. “China has repeatedly violated every trade agreement it has ever signed with the United States. This plan completely ignores America’s concerns about human rights, democracy, religious freedom and environmental protection in China.”

According to a recent vote count by proponents, proposals to monitor Beijing’s conduct on human rights could lure 15 to 20 more Democrats to support the China bill, enough to seal victory.

The Republican totals appear to be rising in the wake of strong pressure by GOP leaders who are sensitive to election-year demands of the business community.

Earlier this week, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) said they would vote for the trade bill, providing a lift to supporters who have been frustrated by widespread Democratic opposition in the House.

Many critics of permanent normal economic ties with China argue that Beijing has not earned the privilege of such a routine relationship and that it cannot be trusted to abide by trade rules.

The careful, emerging efforts to pave the way for new monitoring of China are designed to answer those criticisms, or at least give conflicted legislators cover to vote for normalized trade.

“The members who are against us have been against us for two months,” said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), a leading House advocate of normalized trade with China. “Now, members who are left are saying, ‘You guys are right with the policy, but I’ve got to figure things out politically.’ I think we’ve got a shot at most of the guys who are left in that pool,” he said.

Commerce Secretary Bill Daley outlined the administration’s monitoring proposal, part of a broader, $22-million trade enforcement initiative, during a meeting of the Ways and Means Committee.

The deputy assistant secretary for China, he said, would oversee a team of a dozen compliance and trade specialists, some based in China.

Daley said the administration would also seek to speed up investigations of trade disputes and establish a special program to watch for “surges” of Chinese products into the United States.

In addition, he said the administration would help Chinese officials learn the mechanics of joining the World Trade Organization and implementing its rules and would reach out to American exporters to help them learn their rights under the China deal.

The strategy amounts to the “most intensive enforcement and compliance effort ever mounted for a single trade agreement,” said Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who joined Barshefsky, Daley and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in pushing for the White House plan.

Levin said that granting China permanent, normal trade ties should be considered with the dual goals of maximizing the benefits of the deal for U.S. workers and businesses and continuing to pressure China to improve its human rights record.

Under his plan, a new panel drawn from the administration and Congress would review worker and human rights in China, reminiscent of the Helsinki Commission, which reviewed the Soviet Union’s behavior in Eastern Europe.

In addition, his plan would increase U.S. monitoring resources for Beijing’s trade conduct and call for U.S. trade officials to annually review China’s adherence to its trade promises. It also would press the World Trade Organization for a similar review.