DATE=2/29/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=BARSHEFSKY - CHINA - W-T-O (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-259686
BYLINE=BARBARA SCHOETZAU
DATELINE=NEW YORK
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: U-S Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky
says American workers will suffer if the U-S Congress
does not ratify the agreement supporting China's entry
into the World Trade Organization. V-O-A's Barbara
Schoetzau has this report on Ms. Barshefsky's remarks
in New York Tuesday.
TEXT: After years of negotiations, China and the
United States reached an agreement last year on terms
for China's membership in the World Trade
Organization. But American labor and human rights
groups are calling for defeat of the agreement by the
U-S Congress, which has yet to ratify it.
Ms. Barshefsky calls the agreement one-sided, with
China making all the changes in its trade regime. She
says the United States has only one obligation
according to the new agreement - to make the trade
relationship between the two countries permanent
instead of renewing it every year.
/// BARSHEFSKY ACT ///
If Congress were to refuse to grant permanent
normal trade relations with China, we risk
losing the benefits we negotiated. We will have
succeeded in opening China to the world but our
businesses, our farmers, our workers may well be
left behind. That is a completely unacceptable
-- not to mention irrational -- outcome. The
cost of U-S retreat at this most critical moment
could go well beyond -- I believe will go well
beyond -- our export and trade interests.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Barshefsky says under the agreement, China will
for the first time since the 1940s allow foreign
businesses to participate directly in information
industries, including the internet, and will permit
foreign and Chinese businesses to import and export
freely. These kinds of commitments, the U-S Trade
Representative says, are a remarkable victory for
economic reformers within China.
/// BARSHEFSKY ACT ///
They will reform policies dating to the earliest
years of the communist era. They will give the
Chinese people more access to information,
weakening the ability of hard-liners in China to
isolate the Chinese public from outside
influences and ideas. Altogether, they reflect
a judgment, still not universally shared by all
of China's leadership, that prosperity,
security, and international respect come not
from static notions of nationalism, state power
and state control, but rather economic opening,
engagement with the world and, ultimately, the
development of the rule of law.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Barshefsky spoke to the Asia Society, a private
group that presented the U-S Trade Representative with
its "Leadership Award," for building bridges between
Asia and the United States. (Signed)
NEB/NYC/BJS/LSF/ENE/JP
29-Feb-2000 16:49 PM EDT (29-Feb-2000 2149 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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