Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review May 24, 2000/ 19 Iyar, 5760

Wesley Pruden

Wes Pruden
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports
Newswatch

Trakdata


The heart says no, but
the head says yes


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- IF CHINA WINS the trade vote this week in the House of Representatives, which is still no sure thing, the red men in Beijing and their reluctant sometime allies in Washington will have to win it on points.

Nobody, except Bill Clinton and the greedhead captains of American industry, will take much satisfaction from it.

Nevertheless, judged purely on selfish terms, logic insists, against everything the heart says, that granting China permanent most-favored-nation status is the correct thing, if not the right thing, to do. But holding your nose to vote yes is not the stuff of heroics.

The heart insists the head must make a deferential nod to Bill Clinton, who famously said, on the eve of the vote on a congressional resolution of support for the Gulf war in 1991, that he approved of the resolution but he actually supported those who were voting against it. That never made much sense, but now we know how he felt.

The president, accustomed as he is to saying anything, insists on calling the Chinese in Beijing our "partners." George W., though in favor of a yes vote, insists on calling the Chinese, accurately, our "competitors." The kindest thing you can say about the Chinese is that they don't know what "human rights" means. The Beijing government is actually meaner, more repressive and more brutal about stamping out human rights since Mr. Clinton made his magical mystery tour of the mainland two years ago, gorging on Szechuan chicken, crispy fried beef, shrimp cooked three ways and fawning flattery cooked in more ways than that, all the while toadying to Beijing.

You could ask anyone in Hong Kong, where the rule of law introduced by the British has been steadily dissolving, along with freedom of the press and its Siamese twin, freedom of speech. What can you say about a government that is so terrified of its people that it tries to stamp out a study group that meets only to practice calisthenics and breathing?

So why are we rewarding such a government? A good question, and the answers, though sensible, aren't happy ones. The captains of corporate America insist that the liberalization of trade will open vast new markets for American factories, that those billion or so Chinese worker ants who make 13 cents an hour just can't wait to buy our Cadillacs, yachts, microwave ovens, toasters, cell phones, and, in the case of chicken pluckers like Tyson and Perdue, the feet of our dead chickens, a taste treat in Shanghai and Beijing but thrown out with the trash in the Ozarks and on the Eastern Shore.

What these captains of commerce are actually drooling over are not prospective buyers of American goods (a lot of which are made in Mexico, Malaysia and Indonesia, anyway), but those 13-cent-an-hour worker ants.

The Clinton administration argues, not very persuasively, that China is making "concessions," that it will agree to direct investments in telecommunications and the Internet it's trying to censor, and offer trading rights and greater participation to foreigners. These are paper promises, and this administration's record of enforcing agreements from men and governments it is afraid of is not a good one.

The most persuasive argument is a negative one — that continuing to deny trading rights to China will do nothing to shut down repression in China. Some Chinese who know Beijing best make this argument. Martin Lee, chairman of Hong Kong's Democratic Party who continues, three years after the hand-over of the colony, to be a pain to Beijing, concedes — nay, shouts —that repression is the way of life in China.

"But I am nonetheless lending my support for China's entry into the world trading community," he says. ". . . This is not a reward for China. . . . The rule of law is the key principle underlying active membership in global trade organizations. The principles of free and open trade are based on mutual recognition that all countries must regard one another as equals, with reciprocal rights and reciprocal obligations. Impartial rules of trade among nations could thus help convince China of the importance of equal rights under the law in the domestic sphere, too."

Not only that, Taiwan gets in, too. The World Trade Organization has no dual levels of membership. Gag, retch, like it or not, the red men will have to sit down with representatives of free China and talk to them as equals. The sight of that might be reason enough to vote yes.

Winston Churchill once described capitalism as a corrupt and dismal economic system whose only virtue is that it is superior to all other systems. That's the only way to think of a yes vote for China. Voting yes is better than voting no, but just barely.


JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Up

05/22/00: A fine opportunity to set an example
05/17/00: The Sunday school for Republicans
05/15/00: Hillary's surrogate for telling tall tales
05/10/00: Listening to the voice of an authentic man
05/08/00: First a lot of bluster, then the retreat
05/02/00: Good news for Rudy, bad news for Hillary
04/28/00: The long goodbye to Elian's boyhood
04/25/00: Spooked by Castro, Bubba blinks
04/14/00: One flag down and two memorials to go
04/11/00: Consistency finds a jewel in Janet Reno
04/07/00: Here's the good word (and it's in English)
04/04/00: When bureaucrats mock the courts
03/28/00: How Hollywood sets the virtual table
03/24/00: Dissing a president can ruin a whole day
03/20/00: When shame begets the painful insult
03/14/00: The risky business of making an apology
03/10/00: The pouters bugging a weary John McCain
03/07/00: When all good things (sob) come to an end

© 2000 Wes Pruden