DATE=5/16/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON-CHINA (L)
NUMBER=2-262441
BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST
DATELINE=WHITE HOUSE
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: President Clinton is increasingly optimistic
that his drive to win permanent normal U-S trade
status for China will succeed in Congress. But as V-O-
A's David Gollust reports from the White House, Mr.
Clinton is taking no chances and has begun one-on-one
meetings with undecided House members.
TEXT: The China trade measure is least popular in
Congress among House members of the president's own
Democratic party.
But his campaign for passage got a big boost Tuesday
with an endorsement from the ranking Democrat on the
House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel. And
Mr. Clinton is now openly predicting victory in a vote
he depicts as the most important foreign policy
decision by Congress this year.
At an impromptu news conference here, the president
called Mr. Rangel's decision "enormously important"
and said it should help persuade other Democrats to
support the administration in a committee vote on the
trade measure expected Wednesday, and in a final House
vote sometime next week.
China agreed to deep cuts in trade barriers to
American goods and services last year as part of the
agreement putting Beijing on the same tariff basis as
other major U-S trading partners and clearing the way
to its membership in the World Trade Organization.
In his talk with reporters, Mr. Clinton again stressed
support for the trade bill among Chinese dissidents,
who he said expect freer trade and W-T-O membership to
have a liberalizing effect on Chinese society:
/// CLINTON ACTUALITY ///
Chinese dissidents, in China, people who have
been subject to abuses we would never tolerate
in our country - whose phones have been tapped,
who can't sponsor public events - still implore
us to support this because they know it is the
beginning of the rule of law and change in
China. And (it's) ironic that the people in
China who do not want us to vote for this are
those that hope they will have a standoff with
us and continue in control at home - the more
reactionary elements in the military and the
state-owned industries.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Clinton said the national security and economic
arguments in favor of the trade bill are so
overwhelming that Congress will in the end - as he put
it - "do the right thing" and approve it.
The president, who has held group meetings with
lawmakers on the trade issue, met privately one-on-one
Tuesday with several of the more than 20 House
Democrats who are still undecided and could hold the
key to next week's vote.
The trade bill is opposed by U-S labor unions and
human rights activists, who argue that giving up an
annual congressional review of China's trade status
will cost the United States leverage on human rights.
To ally those concerns, the administration is
supporting a move to create a congressional monitoring
commission to investigate Chinese human rights abuses.
(Signed)
NEB/DAG/TVM/gm
16-May-2000 17:40 PM EDT (16-May-2000 2140 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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