In an old Aesop's fable the wind and the sun test their strength by trying to cause a traveler to remove his heavy cloak. In the face of the wind's angry huffing and puffing, the traveler wraps the cloak even tighter around himself. But under the warm, beaming rays of the sun, the traveler happily removes his cloak. This traveler is a good metaphor for the debate that will be waged on the floor of Congress today, over whether or not to grant permanent normalized trading relations (PNTR) to China. The question is how to defeat oppression and improve the quality of life for billions in China. Is it best that we use trade sanctions, military build-ups and possible violence? Or is it better to fight with the power of the pen (or in this day and age, the keyboard) and to spread freedom to China in the form of imported American culture? In today's vote, Congress will decide whether the best way to remove the cloak of tyranny hanging on the shoulders' of the Chinese people, is through cold isolation, or through warm friendliness.
Unlike many of the issues in Congress, this year, the trade debate has upset the usual party lines in Washington. Some of the most conservative Republicans in the Congress, like New Hampshire's Senator Bob Smith, are allying themselves with labor unions, environmentalist groups and Dick Gephardt, against the trade bill. Meanwhile, the motley crew in favor of permanent normalized trade with China includes the entire White House as well as the Republican Leadership. As a result of these combinations of strange bedfellows, the debate over trade has been substantive and a refreshing reminder that Washington can still escape the election-year, dead-end, ideological fights that have characterized this Congress for the past two years.
Granting PNTR to China means that we will no longer have an annual review of China's trade status. Opponents of the trade deal argue that canceling the annual review is a mistake given China's explicit human rights violations, poor environmental record and poor labor standards. They believe the annual review is the only way to improve human rights in China. But at no time over the last twenty years has Congress cancelled normal trade relations with China. Even during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when innocent Chinese students were demonstrating peacefully in support of Democratic rule, Congress still granted normal trade relations with China.
The issue of labor standards and environmental destruction is much more important. The protestors in Seattle demonstrated that there are plenty of Americans who feel the World Trade Organization has serious problems. But this is not a reason to stop trading with just China. If labor standards and the environment are important to us, we should demand that all WTO members agree to international labor and environmental agreements, not just China.
The main way that we have attempted to affect change in repressive countries in the past is through trade sanctions. If we have learned nothing else from the last 30 years, it is that trade sanctions rarely work. Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, all have lived in isolation for years, and yet none of them have made any changes in their government.
PNTR was the only concession that the U.S. negotiators had to grant to China in order to get China to agree to trade with us as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). But even if we don't pass PNTR, China will still join the WTO. The only difference is that instead of trading with the U.S., China will trade with our competitors in European and Japanese countries. In fact Europe signed a new trade deal with China, just last Friday.
One of the most powerful non-military forces in the world is American culture and the idea of freedom. It is that idea that toppled the Berlin Wall and brought free speech into the old-Soviet Union. Unlike a book, or a gun, the idea of democracy and free speech is not the kind of thing that can be easily destroyed. The hard-line communists in China know this, and are vehemently opposed to trade with the U.S. They know that any loosening of the regulations surrounding China's people is a step closer to their own demise. Tomorrow's vote could be the most important decision for the future of America's economic prosperity. It is a test of how we will attempt to overcome potential adversaries in the post-cold war world. Will we use the power of the military or the marketplace? And most importantly of all, how will our children judge us as a result that decision?
