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“TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S8611-S8613 on Sept. 15, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S
REPUBLIC OF CHINA
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume consideration of H.R. 4444, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 4444) to authorize extension of nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations treatment) to the People's Republic of China, and to establish a framework of relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I would like to make a few comments on the legislation pending before the Senate on the permanent normal trade relations status for China. As announced, we will be having the final vote on this legislation on Tuesday. We had an extended debate on this issue. I think it has been a healthy debate and a good debate for the American people. As I announced earlier, we have disposed of all amendments. We have had amendments on almost every conceivable subject, everything from the environment to labor issues in China, to abortion issues. Of course, none of those amendments, I think, has received more than 33, 34 votes. It is clear this legislation is going to pass and is going to pass overwhelmingly.
Historically, every time there was a vote in the House of Representatives, when I served in the House, and on the occasions in which there were sense of the Senates, I have voted against granting annual most-favored-nation status to China, that which we now call normal trade relations. I want to explain my thinking on this issue.
On May 24, 2000, as the House of Representatives approved permanent normal trade relations status for China, Pastor Wang Li Gong celebrated his 34th birthday by sewing footballs in a forced labor camp in Tianjing. His hands are injured, and they bleed every day because of the work. When Pastor Wang is not trying to fulfill high production quotas, he is allowed only a few hours of sleep and many more hours of torture. He has been under administrative detention since last November for the crime of organizing a Christian gathering in his home.
But Pastor Wang is not the only target of persecution. In its annual report on human rights, our State Department documents just about every violation of international norms in China. Religious persecution to crackdowns on political dissent, to torture, to forced labor, to trafficking of women and children--it is all happening in China. It is not getting better. At least, if you view it in terms of the last few years, if you go back to the Cultural Revolution, you can find there have been fits and starts of improvement, but as you look at the State Department's reports over the last few years, the situation is not improving.
In the area of religious persecution, the State Department, in its Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, notes:
The Government's respect for religious freedom deteriorated markedly, especially for the Falun Gong and Tibetan Buddhists, and the Government's repression and abuses continue during the first 6 months of 2000.
That is, of course, as far as the report extends, is the first 6 months of this year. Its conclusion is:
Respect for religious freedom deteriorated markedly.
At the very time the House of Representatives was voting for PNTR, and during the process by which that debate has gone on in the Senate, the conclusion of our own Government is that ``religious freedom has deteriorated markedly.''
The report goes on to note that:
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted a decision to ban ``cults,'' including the Falun Gong and other religious groups.
At the time the Chinese People's Congress adopted that law banning religious cults, I expressed concern to my colleagues in the Senate that this new law would be very broadly applied. It is bad enough to give a government the power to define what is a cult and what is not, what is acceptable religious belief and what is not acceptable religious belief, but this crackdown was unprecedented. There had been serious crackdowns in the past. At that time, I introduced a resolution in this Senate expressing my concern and the concern of the Congress that this crackdown, this harsh crackdown on the Falun Gong, would only be a beginning. I predicted the so-called cult law would be widely applied.
My worst fears have come true. The law has been applied extremely broadly to other groups, including Christians. On August 23, 2000, Chinese police arrested 130 Christians in Henan Province. These Christians are from the Fangcheng church, a popular house church movement. The Chinese Government considers them a cult, not because of what they believe, not because of their teachings, but because they are not registered with the State; they are not under the control of the Chinese Government. Their leaders, arrested a year ago, are suffering for their faith in labor camps, a penalty under the so-called anti-cult law.
The proponents of PNTR have argued that, No. 1, increased trade will result not only in an increased export of American products to China but also in the export of American values, including human rights and individual freedom.
No. 2, they have asserted that the failure to grant PNTR would result in isolating China and driving the Chinese regime to even more repressive tactics.
No. 3, they have insisted that entry into the WTO will ensure that Chinese misbehavior can be addressed and that Chinese violations would be dealt with under the World Trade Organization.
No. 4, they have further asserted that the creation of a human rights monitoring commission in this legislation will guarantee the ongoing monitoring of human rights conditions in China.
In my opinion, these arguments have merit. Also, the advocates of PNTR are, in my opinion, sincere. I would never question their motivations. I would never question that, in fact, they believe in all sincerity that this is a better route or a real route to improving human rights conditions in China.
I very much want to vote for permanent normal trade relations for China. It will have great economic benefits in the United States; potentially it does. It certainly has great economic benefits to the State of Arkansas. Arkansas is the No. 1 rice-producing State in the Nation. We are looking for markets. We want to sell that rice, whether it is in China, whether it is in Cuba, or wherever it is in the world.
Some have analyzed the cotton industry will be the biggest beneficiary under PNTR. Arkansas is in the top tier of States in the production of cotton.
Arkansas is the leading State in poultry production. When I visited China and went to the two Wal-Marts that are in China today--a Sam's store and a Wal-Mart--I was surprised to see the No. 1 product being sold is chicken feet. It is a delicacy, a speciality in China. We in Arkansas grow poultry. We want to make every use of it, and China is a good market for it. We have major retailers in Arkansas, and the prospects of new markets emerging in China are very appealing to retailers.
I very much wanted to vote for this bill. It is in many ways in the economic interest of Arkansas to see this go forward and, in fact, it is going to pass.
In addition, the human rights community, while generally opposing PNTR, is not of one voice. It is not of a monolithic opinion. Not everybody in the human rights community believes that PNTR should go down. Some, in fact, accept these arguments as being meritorious, that increased trade will bring about liberalization in China, greater democratization, and eventually improvement in human rights. Good people can and do disagree. That is the case when it comes to whether or not China should receive from us permanent normal trade relations.
I hope and pray the arguments that have been made by the PNTR proponents are all realized, that they are right on every point. I hope when they express their conviction that the best way to improve human rights in China is to see increased contact with the outside world, to see increased trade, to be exposed to new ideas, to see an expansion of the Internet, that all of those arguments are realized and realized soon, not in the long term but in the short term.
We may eventually see political liberalization in China. I think we will in the long term. But we should not assume PNTR or the WTO will be the main driver of this change. While we hope for change in the long run, I do not believe we can remain silent about Chinese abuses in the shortrun. We must not ignore the lessons of history.
I listened with great interest to much of the debate on the floor over the last 2 weeks, particularly the distinguished Senator from New York, in whom I have the greatest admiration and respect for his scholarship and his mind, as he went through some of the historic lessons of China and talked of improvements in China's human rights record. In one sense, that is certainly true. It is better now than it was during the Cultural Revolution, but let's not be selective in our recounting of recent Chinese history.
During the winter months of 1978 and 1979, thousands of people in Beijing posted their written complaints and protests about the ills of China on a stretch of blank wall on Chang'an Avenue. This voice of protest, which became known as the democracy wall movement, was muzzled as the Chinese Government imprisoned its leaders such as Wei Jingsheng.
That same year of the crackdown on the democracy wall movement, the U.S. established diplomatic relations with China and signed a bilateral trade agreement. Deng Xiaoping introduced a series of economic and legal reforms, and international protests against repression in China were drowned out by the promise of free-market initiatives. Twenty-one years since the United States signed a bilateral trade agreement with China, we have only seen increasing political repression and religious persecution.
Harvard professor Dani Rodrik expressed this sentiment when he said:
I would not assume, as many advocates of normalized trade relations with China have done, that expanded trade will necessarily produce greater democracy. . . . If the Chinese leadership is truly interested in democratization, they do not need the World Trade Organization to help them achieve it. . . . There are no human rights prerequisites for WTO membership. Even if the Chinese Government were to become more repressive, existing WTO rules would not allow the U.S. and other countries to withdraw trade privileges. The pressure would have to be applied outside the WTO context.
What he is saying is if we cede the main tool we have for applying this pressure, which has been the annual MFN debate, by passing the PNTR package, we are left with a toothless Levin-Bereuter commission. This commission proposal, which is included in the PNTR package we will be voting on, has been sold as a Helsinki Commission for China. As a Helsinki Commissioner, I know this proposed commission lacks a cornerstone, the Helsinki Final Act, which commits OSCE member nations to certain human rights standards. Without that foundation, we will simply be duplicating the efforts of the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and we will find out from this commission what we already know: Human rights in China are and at least for the foreseeable future will remain deplorable.
It would be wrong for me not to recognize the economic arguments for granting PNTR to China, and I have tried to acknowledge that. I believe business and agriculture can determine their best interests, but here, too, we should recognize that inflated expectations could quickly be punctured by an unruly China. For all the anticipation and excitement in the business community over PNTR, we will face a recalcitrant trading partner in China at the WTO. We will see the dispute settlement system and the very functioning of the WTO put to a great test.
In the final analysis, though I know PNTR is going to pass and though I realize there are going to be some very significant economic benefits to our country, and while I hope the best face and the great expectations that have been propounded for this legislation will be realized, I have concluded that I must vote no on this because the words in the most recent State Department report on China keep echoing in my ears: ``The Government's respect for religious freedom deteriorated markedly.'' It is the most recent report--and I cannot escape the judgment that it has not gotten better--that the conditions in China have deteriorated markedly.
In ancient Rome, the Roman Government did not really care what Roman citizens believed. They did not care what their religious faith was or necessarily if they even had a religious faith. What they did care about was the supremacy of the Roman Government over its people and over all religions. Effectively, they said to their citizens: You can believe anything you want so long as you will affirm that Caesar is lord. It was not the beliefs of Christians that got them in trouble in the Roman persecutions; it was the fact they would not make that affirmation that the Roman Government was supreme and that Caesar was lord.
It seems to me that is a clear analogy to the conditions in China today. There is religious freedom in China only insofar as every religious group in China will affirm that the Chinese Government is ultimately supreme. To the extent that any religious group defies that ultimate standard, they then face intense persecution.
So for those reasons I will cast a ``no'' vote. I suspect that there will be 20 to 25 Members who will cast that same vote. I hope for the best outcome for PNTR, but for my own conscience I will cast a ``no'' vote next week.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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