Published by: World Tibet Network News 97/05/23 23:00 GMT

Editorial

Wednesday, May 21 1997

The Washington Post

PRESIDENT CLINTON has renewed China's most-favored-nation trading

status (MFN) for another year, and for good reason. But Mr. Clinton's decision will trigger sharp opposition in Congress, also for good reason. Simply put, the Clinton administration has not made good on its promise to balance the granting of trade privileges with forceful representation of U.S. interests in

other areas of the U.S.-China relationship.

Most nations in the world enjoy MFN status with the United States, allowing them lower tariffs on goods they send here. To deny MFN status to China would harm many Chinese with whom America has no quarrel -- not least in Hong Kong, set to revert to Chinese authority July 1. Revoking MFN is too blunt an instrument to address U.S. concerns with Chinese behavior in human rights, nonproliferation and other troubling areas. But granting MFN accomplishes nothing unless the administration addresses those concerns in other ways, as it once promised to do.

Mr. Clinton came to office vowing to attach human rights conditions to MFN to force the "butchers of Beijing" to improve their record. In 1994 he reversed course, arguing that granting MFN without conditions would give the United States more leverage in the long run. Since then, the Chinese record has worsened; according to the State Department, not a single Chinese dissident has escaped jail or exile, a record even Brezhnev's KGB could not match.

In a letter to Congress in 1994, Mr. Clinton said he had "cut the link between MFN and human rights conditions -- but left human rights as a cornerstone in our relations with China." Unfortunately, only the first part came true. Mr. Clinton said the administration would expand Radio Free Asia broadcasting to China, press China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, promote voluntary business principles for U.S. firms in China, increase support for Chinese civic society, highlight the issue of Tibet in international forums and "intensify our high-level dialogue on human rights." On all but the broadcasting, the administration dropped the ball. This year in Geneva it abdicated its leadership role, and there is little evidence that human rights play any significant role in the relationship. A bilateral agreement between China and the United States intended to discourage exports to America of goods made by prison labor has not been enforced.

The United States has a decided interest in maintaining good working relations with China, but it's worth recalling that such interests don't run only one way. About 2 percent of U.S. exports go to China; something like one-third of China's exports come here. China never "delinks" commercial privileges from its political goals. If the administration is going to do so, at least it should, as promised, stand up for its goals in other ways.