Text: Senator Helms July 19 Remarks on Implications of China PNTR
(United States should not look away from human rights abuses)

Granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status, despite China's human rights record and failure to abide by standing trade and economic agreements, is not principled foreign policy, according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms.

"I believe that jettisoning the leverage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment on Communist China undercuts our efforts to defend the fundamental principles of freedom," Helms (Republican of North Carolina) said in his opening statement to a July 19 hearing on the implications of PNTR for human rights and labor.

Following is the text of Helms' statement:

(begin text)

OPENING STATEMENT
SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS CHAIRMAN
JESSE HELMS
Giving Permanent Normal Trade Relations Status to Communist
China: Humans Rights and Economic Implications
July 19, 2000

MR. HELMS. Today the Foreign Relations Committee holds its second hearing on legislation to grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations to Communist China. Our purpose today is to consider how PNTR will impact China's behavior in human and labor rights, and China's dreadful record in failing to abide by its trade and economic agreements with the United States already in effect.

This debate is not merely about how to increase exports to China, or about maintaining dialogue with China. It is about what America stands for as a nation. The United States is not France; morality is still an integral part of America's identity, America's foreign policy interests and America's influence in the world.

I believe that jettisoning the leverage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment on Communist China undercuts our efforts to defend the fundamental principles of freedom.

I do not believe the American people will countenance a foreign policy which looks the other way:

-- when the Chinese dictatorship tries to censor the Internet with American companies' help;

-- when the Chinese dictatorship throws into jail members of the China Democracy Party with no semblance of due process;

-- when the Chinese dictatorship detains and tortures thousands of harmless followers of the Falun Gong (FAH-Loon GONG) spiritual movement;

-- when the Chinese dictatorship brutally terrorizes underground Christians and Roman Catholic priests, by arresting, torturing and in some cases throwing them out of windows;

-- when the Chinese dictatorship occupies and suppresses Buddhist Tibet and Muslim Xinjiang (Shin-JONG);

-- when the Chinese dictatorship permits NO labor unions except those it can control;

-- when the Chinese dictatorship subsidizes state enterprises with the confiscated savings of low-income workers; and

-- when the Chinese dictatorship permits rampant piracy of the intellectual property of American citizens -- our software, our videos, our CDs.

Opinion poll after opinion poll has shown that a majority of Americans oppose giving "NORMAL trade status" to a dictatorship with almost no rule of law in the political realm and precious little in the economic realm, even after years of so-called "reforms."

The American people instinctively know what the foreign policy "experts" just can't seem to grasp: that China's government won't be a civilized actor in the world unless and until it respects civil liberties and basic freedoms for working people, and allows a true free enterprise system to take root.

To discuss these matters, we are delighted to welcome today's witnesses. We have a distinguished American, Mr. Gary Bauer of American Values, who has spoken up bravely for victims of Chinese communist tyranny, fighting to exercise their God-given rights to freedom of worship and expression.

Mr. George Becker is a major leader in organized labor, as President of the United Steelworkers, and we are pleased he could rearrange his plans to be with us here today.

And finally, Ms. Dai Qing (DIE CHING), a proponent of greater liberties in her native China, who comes to tell us why she believes so-called "PNTR" is a good thing.

We welcome you all today....

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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