U.S. Dept. of State - IIP: The United States and China

Text: Rep. Chris Smith Says No PNTR for China
(Smith cites Beijing's abuses in press conference)

The United States should not grant permanent Normal Trade Relations (NTR) status to China, according to Representative Chris Smith (Republican from New Jersey), chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights.

"There is nothing 'normal' about trade with China," Smith said in a May 4 press conference in Washington, D.C. on legislation that would end the annual review of China's trade status with the United States.

Normal countries, Smith said, "do not routinely beat, torture and murder its citizens if they disagree with the government."

The United States, Smith said, "cannot grant PNTR to a country that systematically tortures its people, arrests religious believers, runs forced labor camps and exerts coercive population control. To grant PNTR to China would be to turn a blind eye to the horrors that are taking place each day in China."

Remarks by Rep. Chris Smith Regarding
Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China
May 4, 2000

Seven years ago, when President Clinton issued an executive order linking significant progress on human rights with continuance of MFN for China -- giving them a probationary year to reform -- this Republican Congressman had nothing but praise for the Administration.

Partisanship has no place in the struggle for equality, fairness and observance of human rights.

Yet in 1994, when it became clear that human rights had actually deteriorated and suffered significant regression, the President, sadly, actually de-linked MFN trading privileges with human rights. Since then, as Chairman of the International Operations and Human Rights Sub-Committee, I have chaired 18 hearings exclusively focused on Chinese abuses, and have led three congressional fact finding missions to China.

Today, egregious human rights abuses in China are commonplace. Even the State Department's Human Rights Report makes clear that religious, political and labor violations have all increased with each passing year.

And just this past Monday, the first annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom was released condemning PNTR.

One of the Report's key recommendations states that "(w)hile many Commissioners support free trade, the Commission believes that the U.S. Congress should grant China (PNTR) status only after China makes substantial improvement in respect for religious freedom," as measured by several specific standards.

That guidance -- driven not by politics or ideology but by the dismal facts of the situation in China -- deserves careful consideration in the weeks ahead. I urge each of my colleagues in Congress to review the extensively documented China sections of the Report and Staff Memorandum before casting their votes an PNTR for China.

Bernard Cardinal Law, Chairman of the USCC Committee on International Policy, said in a letter to Congress last month, "These are not marginal issues or diversions in fashioning a strong and productive relationship between our two nations. Absent any other comparable means to focus needed attention on these matters, a strong vote against granting permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) at this time will send a clear signal to the leaders of both nations, pressing them to give a much higher priority to human rights and religious freedom in the future."

Cardinal Law continued, "People of good will can disagree on these matters. Trade issues are often not the best means of expressing concern on human rights. Other means, not related to trade, should be sought and strengthened to communicate our country's deep concerns about China's worsening record on human rights and religious freedom, but a decision now to forgo on a permanent basis the annual review and debate on these issues could be seen as an abandonment of U.S. concern for religious liberty and human rights."

I could not agree more with Cardinal Law's eloquent remarks. A vote against Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China will send a clear message that we will not tolerate China's persistent human rights violations.

There is nothing "normal" about trade with China. Normal countries do not routinely beat, torture and murder its citizens if they disagree with the government. Normal countries do not try to influence an upcoming democratic election in a neighboring land by making military threats if they do not like the outcome, like China did with Taiwan.

Normal countries do not routinely violate their trade agreements and steal U.S. nuclear, military, and industrial secrets. And normal countries do not violate American campaign finance laws by attempting to buy elections in the United States.

Let's be clear -- we do not advocate isolationism. But we as a nation cannot grant PNTR to a country that systematically tortures its people, arrests religious believers, runs forced labor camps and exerts coercive population control. To grant PNTR to China would be to turn a blind eye to the horrors that are taking place each day in China.

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