U.S. grants China permanent normal trade status

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush granted China permanent normal trade status Thursday, ending a quarter-century policy of using access to U.S. markets as an annual enticement to the Chinese to expand political and economic freedoms.

The president's decision will end yearly battles in Congress that have been waged since 1980 and that sometimes divided the Democratic Party during the Clinton years. The decision was set up by China's admission last month to the World Trade Organization.

Bush called the trade proclamation the "final step in normalizing U.S.-China trade relations" and said it would open up the vast Chinese markets to billions of dollars in American goods.

The new trade status will take effect Jan. 1, Bush said in the announcement, which was released in Crawford, Texas, where he is vacationing.

Bush's proclamation formally removed China from having to adhere to the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. The amendment, initially aimed at the former Soviet Union's restrictions against Jewish emigration, withholds normal trade relations with communist states that restrict emigration.

Since 1980, China has enjoyed temporary normal trade relations with the United States under annual presidential waivers of the law. But each waiver has prompted debates in Congress over China's record on human rights and weapons proliferation.

The last debate occurred in July, when the House voted 259-169 to approve Bush's waiver this year, the last that will be necessary.

The annual congressional battle pitted American business and its Republican allies against big labor and its Democratic supporters. President Bill Clinton, at odds with many in his own party, started the process of moving China toward permanent trade status before he left office.

Congress last year granted the permanent status to China contingent upon its entry into the World Trade Organization. Its application was formally accepted at the organization's annual meeting last month in the United Arab Emirates.

The annual struggle also inflamed tensions with China each year and prompted worries in that country every time it arose.

China and the United States reached an agreement, as part of China's WTO entry, that will lower China's tariffs on U.S. goods and open up its service sector to American companies.

China's tariffs on U.S.-made goods are to fall from an overall average of 25 percent to 9 percent by 2005. Duties on America's primary farm products are to drop from 31 percent to 14 percent.

Bush has long supported trade with Beijing, even during the standoff over a U.S. spy plane that collided with a Chinese jet fighter and made an emergency landing on Chinese territory early this year.

In asking Congress for a temporary extension in June, Bush argued that normal relations would benefit the American economy and promote an "economically open, politically stable and secure China."

Trade with China helps American farmers and American business, Bush said. Last year, he said, U.S. farmers exported goods to China and Hong Kong worth more than $3 billion, and American businesses increased exports to China by 24 percent.

Re: #35,38

For many years, military experts noted that China's leaders like Mao spoke bombasitcally but were actually very cautious in their use of military power. But China has become more "assertive" in recent years. In 1974, it seized severl of the Parcel Islands in the South China Sea from Vietnam. In 1979, it broke its still frequently-reiterated promise never to be the first to resort to arms when it attacked over the north Vietnamese border. In 1988, the Chinese sank three Vietnamese ships in the Sprtatlys area. More than seventy-five Vietnamese sailors were killed or missing. SInce then, CHina has gradually occupied addional islands in the Spratlys. In 1994, There was an episode in the Yellow Sea involving a Chinese submarine and American ships. In 1995, China sent an armed naval force that seized Mischief Reef from the Philippines. In 1996, it fired missiles off the coast of Taiwan in an attempt to intimidate the residents of the island during the presidential elections there--a bit of saber rattling taken seriously enough in Washington for the Clinstone administration to respond. During the Taiwan episode, China warned the United States to stay out of the Taiwan Strait, which is an international waterway.

China in short is willing to use military force outside of its borders in what seem to be at least probing efforts, attempts to guage what the response of other countries will be, how strong their political will is, and who, if anyone, will come to their aid. It chose Vietnam as a target in part to see whether the Soviet Union would retaliate. In the Mischief Reef incident, it seemed to be testing whether the Philippines closest friends--its treaty ally, the United States, as well as its neighbors among the ASEAN nations would resopond. SO far, the attacks have been minor, but they have also demonstrated China's determination to exptend its power deep into the strategically crucial South China Sea. A quick look at a map will show the enormous thrust forward that CHina would gain by controlling the islands that it claims in what is effectively an island waterway that connects most of teh contries of Southeast Asia and governs the most important sea routes from Japan to the Middle East and Europe. Mischief Reef is in the southeast part of the South CHina Sea, about 800 nautical miles from the nearest point in undisputed CHinese territory, Hainan Island, but about 135 nautical miles from the nearest Point in the Philippines, the coast of Palawan Island. Fiery Cross Reef, in the Spratly Islands, where CHina now has built early warning radar installations, is even further south.

Hong Kong offers naval vessels free access to the best deep water ports in all of Asia, one poised at the northern entrance of the South CHina Sea. As part of the agreements for the handover, the British paid for constructions of a new naval base at Hong Kong's Stonecutters Island, with four hundred meters of deepwater frontage capable of taking even aircraft carriers. Some British analysts believe that CHina plans to turn Stonecutters into a major southern naval base, from which it could extend its control over the entire South China Sea.

Increasingly, China is looking abroad, not only to Russia, but now also to western European countries, to purchase advanced military hardware that will rapidly increase its power porjection capabilities. The latter half of 1996 witnessed an upsurge in such deal making, very likely propted by the PLA's failure to intimidate Taiwan with its military excercised and missile tests early that year. The fall of 1996 saw widespread reports that CHina was close to aquiring the aircraft carrier Clemenceau from France, reportedly with completely upgraded electronics and radar systems. Although years will pass before the CHinese Navy assebles all the other ships needed to constitute a modern aircraft carrier task force, the aquisition of the Clemenceau, particularly one with up-to-date electronics. would be a milestone.

Clinton taught Bush just what the sheeple will allow.

Exactly opposite.

The incontrovertible evidence that is our policy toward China aside -- Legal Abortion is the dead-dead-dead-giveaway that if Clinton is the mud-spattered quarterback running the ball down the field, the Daddy Party is the oh-so respectable Tom Landry in coat and tie on the sidelines.

They're still on the same team and it's still Landry who calls the plays.

Folks can pretend all they want that the "evil" Clinton had scores of folks -- including some very old and very good friends of his -- killed. I suspect those who handled Clinton also handled his messes for him ... whether he liked it or not.

Both Lao Bushi and Dole stepped up during impeachment to "send a message" that actual removal would be detrimental to the decorum of the office.

Either you pretend that Clinton is yet the mastermind and superior (despite the drugs, women and uncontrolled temper that underscore his being "kept") or you understand that they preserved him to carry off Serbia, assist with the sinking of Gore and handy bagman on whom they could pin the PNTR vote, the 11th hour slew of regulatory legislation and a slew of other last minute "Clinton Legacies".

"Excellent posts! I would have much rather had China have to have an annual renewal of its trade status. I suppose it doesn't matter for me anyway (I quit buying "Made in China"). One must hope that the CCP will finally capitulate to the Chinese people; then it would be a pleasure to buy their goods (assuming those left in charge aren't oppresors themselves...)"

Thanks! Even though those of us have quite buying goods 'Made in China' its still difficult to know that the goods we are buying here in the US arent manufactured here in the US by a corporation owned by the PLA as I have mentioned in other threads. If you have the chance pick up a copy of 'The Coming Conflict with China' By, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro. It's an excellent yet frightening read of accurate information.

Regards!
EOTS

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