Providing For Further Consideration Of H.R. 4444, Authorizing Extension Of Nondiscriminatory Treatment (Normal Trade Relations Treatment) To People's Republic Of China Hon. Adam Smith of Washington May 24, 2000 |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of PNTR
for China and for this rule. Without question, China has a horrible record
on a whole series of issues: human rights, labor standards, religious freedom.
That is not the question before the House today. The question before the
House today is what path is most likely to make it better? And what we
have seen, from Presidents Nixon to Reagan to Bush to Clinton, is an embracement
of the policy of engagement, of bringing them into our world with our values
to help improve the system. Giving China a stake in a different world order
than the one they subscribe to now will have the best likelihood of moving
them forward.
I want to make one critical point. However we vote on this, I do not think we should kid ourselves that this is going to solve the problem with China one way or the other. The problem of improving China's human rights record, their labor standards, their religious freedom, is going to take a whole lot of work for decades to come. This one vote is not going to cut it down or set it up. We have to keep working on the problem. As human rights leaders in China, as Taiwan and a lot of people recognize, we are not going to make any progress whatsoever if we isolated China and cut them off from the rest of the world. Then they have nothing to lose by behaving in a way that the rest of the world does not like. On the annual vote that we are giving up, we hear how great this annual vote is. It is kind of interesting in listening to the debate I have heard people say the annual vote has made no difference whatsoever but we cannot afford to lose it. That is sort of a contradictory argument. The bottom line is, whatever we do here in the U.S. has a minimum amount of impact on moving China forward. But the question is, what is going to move it forward or backwards? We are not going to stop talking about China's human rights record just because we do not have an annual vote. I mean, who is kidding who on that? We are going to continue to talk about it, on a whole series of issues. But by not taking this vote, we lose the opportunity to pull China into the WTO, to pull them closer to the rest of the world, so that we have some hope of moving them forward. This is not a guarantee. Anyone who stands up and says voting for this is somehow going to make democracy and freedom appear in China is kidding us, but it is going to move it in the right direction, and we should take this vote. |
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