Influencing China

Alert shoppers know they can shame Kathie Lee Gifford into making sure her clothing line is not produced in sweatshops; they know Nike can be pressured to at least appear concerned about the factory conditions where its sneakers are produced. But the question before Congress is whether it can force a Communist government ruling a population of 1.2 billion producers and consumers into changing its anti-human rights ways through the lure of lucrative trade.

Nearly a decade of debating and granting most-favored nation status for China suggests it can’t be done, or at least can’t be done by Congress. The very fact that opponents can list dozens of examples of new abuses — including, most recently, the prison deaths of three more Falun Gong members — while supporters of opening trade still offer only the potential of human-rights improvements through trade demonstrates how feeble U.S. influence is on this question.

Given that China already has access to U.S. markets and has seen its economy grow rapidly in the past two decades no matter how many human-rights speeches have been given in Washington, the time has come for members of Congress to stop wondering whether the United States should grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) for China and become more effective in working on the details of how trade might be carried out, tying their agreement to measurable standards on human rights, the environment and religious freedom.

In a brief letter last week, 149 economists, including 13 Nobel Prize winners, supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization — the other half of the two trade deals pushed hard by the Clinton administration — but did not say whether they also backed PNTR. Congress cannot directly affect China’s entrance into the WTO, but U.S. businesses will not be able to take full advantage of China’s WTO status without the congressional nod. The economists, like America’s Asian allies, who also urge U.S. support, didn’t back China’s accession to the WTO because they care more about profits than the torture of political prisoners, but, as was pointed out at their press conference, because the status quo offers even less hope of reform in China than the trade deal does. The presence of such a forum is precisely why protests of the Seattle WTO meeting were on target: Like it or not, that is the future marketplace, the organization that will establish ground rules to settle trade disputes.

Even if this makes sense to members of Congress, it still leaves them with a problem, neatly summed up by one of the 149 economists, Robert M. Solow, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “Opening of trade always hurts some small number of people, and hurts them appreciably. It benefits the whole population, but each of them by a relatively small amount.” Maine may risk losing some more of its older manufacturing jobs, but the potential for other industries — from potatoes to wood composites — is large. With the exception of Rep. Tom Allen, who supports PNTR, Maine’s congressional delegation continues to weigh the issue. Gov. Angus King, however, signed a letter with 42 other governors urging its passage. The decision to risk a small portion of the economy to gain far more is made easier by the knowledge that the state’s older economy is disappearing no matter what Congress does.

If there is hope that trade will change a country’s human-rights policies, it will come not from one nation shouting at another, but from a hundred nations agreeing to real, measurable standards and then enforcing the rules. The only organization like that is the WTO, and that’s where U.S. trade with China should be headed.