22 April 1999
CONGRESS DIVIDED ON CHINA WTO ENTRY, DESPITE BENEFITS FOR U.S.
(April 21 House Subcommittees' Hearing On China) (530) By Steve La Rocque USIA Staff Writer Washington -- Key Congressional lawmakers see China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) as being beneficial to long-term U.S. interests, according to Representative Douglas Bereuter (Republican of Nebraska), chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. But, Bereuter said in an April 21 hearing conducted jointly with the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, recently revealed Chinese activities, including nuclear espionage and illegal financial contributions in the last U.S. presidential campaign, as well as Beijing's increasingly bellicose stance toward Taiwan, have weakened support among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican from Florida), chairwoman of the subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, noted that while China supporters touted America's "strategic partnership" with that country, China stands accused of stealing U.S. nuclear secrets. Bereuter also faulted the Chinese government for engaging in serious negotiations regarding its accession to the WTO only in the month prior to the visit of Chinese Premier Zhu to America. "If it's in our interest," Bereuter said, the Congress should approve China's WTO accession. "I think it's doable," he said. Bereuter, a supporter of China's entry into the WTO on acceptable commercial terms, stressed that non-trade issues made accession "increasingly problematic," with support "at one our low points right now." Non-trade issues "will play a role" in the decision regarding permanent most favored nation (MFN) trade status for China, Bereuter said. He called President Clinton, the only person who "can deliver Democratic votes" for China. Republicans, Bereuter said, had always provided the majority of votes for bills for more open and free trade, "but the slippage is on my (Republican) side." The House of Representatives, he added, would be a "harder sell" than the Senate. "Strategic engagement," Bereuter said, "is not working well," citing the "increasingly troubled" state of U.S.-China relations. Bereuter chided the Clinton administration for offering only a "cursory" human rights resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Ros-Lehtinen described a China that was both promising and forbidding. China, the "largest potential market," had offered "extraordinary concessions" in the recent trade negotiations, but she pointed out that China ran up a $57 billion trade surplus with the United States in 1998. In addition, she said, it was estimated that Chinese firms had pilfered more than $2 billion worth of intellectual property. Representative Earl Pomeroy (Democrat from North Dakota) touted the recent agreement between the United States and China on agricultural trade as a success, but fellow Democrats Howard Berman and Bradley Sherman, both of California, stressed that protection of intellectual property rights would have to be part of any agreement that would have a chance of passing in the Congress. The stance Congress takes on Chinese behavior is of critical importance, as Sandra Kristoff, former special assistant to the President, noted in her testimony to the committee, "there seems little doubt that if we do not conclude the bilateral agreement, prospects for China's WTO membership will fade for several years."
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