[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[March 8, 2000]
[Pages 404-408]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
[[Page 404]]
Remarks at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
March 8, 2000
Thank you very much, President Brody,
Dean Wolfowitz. I thank all the members of
our administration who are here--Secretary Daley, who is coordinating our efforts in the Congress; Secretary
Summers; Secretary Glickman. I want to say a special word of thanks to Ambassador
Barshefsky and National Economic Adviser
Gene Sperling who negotiated this agreement
with China and wrung the last drop of blood out of it. And my National
Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, I thank him
for his great advocacy; Ambassador Holbrooke; to our OPIC President, George Munoz.
I would also like to acknowledge the presence of a very important
member of our economic team, Lael Brainard,
because her mother works here at SAIS, and I
want her mother to know she's done a good job. She may never speak to me
again, but her mother will be happy. [Laughter]
I want to thank all the distinguished people in the audience, who
care so much about China, and the faculty and the students here of this
magnificent institution. And I want to thank my longtime friend Lee
Hamilton. If I had any respect for this
audience, I would just ask you to wait 5 minutes; I'd run out and copy
his speech, hand it to you. He said exactly what I wanted to say in
about 2,000 fewer words. [Laughter]
I also want to say, President Brody and
Dean Wolfowitz, how much I appreciate the
involvement of Johns Hopkins and the School for Advanced International
Studies in China, in particular, at this moment in history and for
giving me the chance to come here and talk about what is one of the most
important decisions America has made in years.
Last fall, as all of you know, the United States signed the
agreement to bring China into the WTO on terms that will open its market
to American products and investments. When China concludes similar
agreements with other countries, it will join the WTO. But as Lee said,
for us to benefit from that, we must first grant it permanent normal
trading status, the same arrangement we have given other countries in
the WTO. Before coming here today, I submitted legislation to Congress
to do that, and I again publicly urge Congress to approve it as soon as
possible.
Again, I want to emphasize what has already been said. Congress will
not be voting on whether China will join the WTO. Congress can only
decide whether the United States will share in the economic benefits of
China joining the WTO. A vote against PNTR will cost America jobs, as
our competitors in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere capture Chinese markets
that we otherwise would have served.
Supporting China's entry into the WTO, however, is about more than
our economic interests. It is clearly in our larger national interest.
It represents the most significant opportunity that we have had to
create positive change in China since the 1970's, when President Nixon
first went there, and later in the decade when President Carter
normalized relations. I am working as hard as I can to convince Congress
and the American people to seize this opportunity.
For a long time now, the United States has debated its relationship
with China, through all the changes, particularly, of the last century.
And like all human beings everywhere, we see this relationship through
the prism of our own experience. In the early 1900's, most Americans saw
China either through the eyes of traders seeking new markets or
missionaries seeking new converts. During World War II, China was our
ally; during the Korean war, our adversary. At the dawn of the cold war,
when I was a young boy beginning to study such things, it was a cudgel
in a political battle: Who lost China? Later, it was a counterweight to
the Soviet Union. And now, in some people's eyes, it's a caricature.
Will it be the next great capitalist tiger with the biggest market in
the world, or the world's last great communist dragon and a threat to
stability in Asia?
Through all the changes in China and the changes in our perception
of China, there has been one constant: We understand that America has a
profound stake in what happens in China and how China relates to the
rest of the world. That's why, for 30 years, every President, without
regard to party, has worked for a China that contributes to the
stability of Asia, that is
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open to the world, that upholds the rule of law at home and abroad.
Of course, the path that China takes to the future is a choice China
will make. We cannot control that choice; we can only influence it. But
we must recognize that we do have complete control over what we do. We
can work to pull China in the right direction, or we can turn our backs
and almost certainly push it in the wrong direction.
The WTO agreement will move China in the right direction. It will
advance the goals America has worked for in China for the past three
decades. And of course, it will advance our own economic interests.
Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street.
It requires China to open its markets--with a fifth of the world's
population, potentially the biggest markets in the world--to both our
products and services in unprecedented new ways. All we do is to agree
to maintain the present access which China enjoys. Chinese tariffs, from
telecommunications products to automobiles to agriculture, will fall by
half or more over just 5 years. For the first time, our companies will
be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in
America, without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell
through the Chinese Government, or transfer valuable technology. For the
first time, we'll be able to export products without exporting jobs.
Meanwhile, we'll get valuable new safeguards against any surges of
imports from China. We're already preparing for the largest enforcement
effort ever given for a trade agreement.
If Congress passes PNTR, we reap these rewards. If Congress rejects
it, our competitors reap these rewards. Again, we must understand the
consequences of saying no. If we don't sell our products to China,
someone else will step into the breach, and we'll spend the next 20
years wondering why in the wide world we handed over the benefits we
negotiated to other people.
Of course, we're going to continue our efforts not just to expand
trade but to expand it in a way that reinforces our fundamental values
and, for me, the way the global economic system must move. Trade must
not be a race to the bottom, whether we're talking about child labor or
basic working conditions or the environment. The more we avoid dealing
with these issues, the more we fuel the fires of protectionism. That's
why we'll continue our efforts to make the WTO itself more open, more
transparent, more participatory, and to elevate the consideration of
labor and environmental issues in trade.
But most of the critics of the China-WTO agreement do not seriously
question its economic benefits. They're more likely to say things like
this: ``China is a growing threat to Taiwan and its neighbors. We
shouldn't strengthen it,'' or, ``China violates labor rights and human
rights. We shouldn't reward it,'' or, ``China is a dangerous
proliferator. We shouldn't empower it.''
These concerns are valid, but the conclusion of those who raise them
as an argument against China-WTO isn't. China is a one-party state that
does not tolerate opposition. It does deny its citizens fundamental
rights of free speech and religious expression. It does define its
interests in the world sometimes in ways that are dramatically at odds
from our own. But the question is not whether we approve or disapprove
of China's practices. The question is, what's the smartest thing to do
to improve these practices?
I believe the choice between economic rights and human rights,
between economic security and national security, is a false one.
Membership in the WTO, of course, will not create a free society in
China overnight or guarantee that China will play by global rules. But
over time, I believe it will move China faster and further in the right
direction and certainly will do that more than rejection would. To
understand how, it's important to understand why China is willing to do
what it has undertaken to perform in this agreement.
Over the last 20 years, China has made great progress in building a
new economy, lifting more than 200 million people out of abject poverty,
linking so many people through its new communications network that it's
adding the equivalent of a new Baby Bell every year. Nationwide, China
has seen the emergence of more than a million nonprofit and social
organizations and a 2,500 percent explosion of print and broadcast
media.
But its economy still is not creating jobs fast enough to meet the
needs of the people. Only about a third of the economy is private
enterprise. Nearly 60 percent of the investment and 80 percent of all
business lending still goes toward state-owned dinosaurs that are least
likely to survive in the global economy and most likely to be vulnerable
to corruption.
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Much of China's economy today still operates under the old theory
that if only they had shoveled coal into the furnaces faster, the
Titanic would have stayed afloat. It is ironic, I think, that so many
Americans are concerned about the impact on the world of a strong China
in the 21st century. But the danger of a weak China, beset by internal
chaos and the old nightmares of disintegration, is also real, and the
leaders of China know this as well.
So they face a dilemma. They realize that if they open China's
market to global competition, they risk unleashing forces beyond their
control: temporary unemployment, social unrest, and greater demands for
freedom. But they also know that without competition from the outside,
China will not be able to attract the investment necessary to build a
modern, successful economy. And the failure to do that could be even
more destabilizing, with more negative consequences.
So with this agreement, China has chosen reform, despite the risks.
It has chosen to overcome a great wall of suspicion and insecurity and
to engage the rest of the world. The question for the United States,
therefore, is, do we want to support that choice or reject it, becoming
bystanders as the rest of the world rushes in. That would be a mistake
of truly historic proportions.
You know, as we debate about China here--and we love to do it; it
absorbs a great deal of our time and energy--it's easy to forget that
the Chinese leaders and their people are also engaged in a debate about
us there. And many of them believe that we honestly don't want their
country to assume a respected place in the world. If China joins the WTO
but we turn our backs on them, it will confirm their fears.
All I can say to you is that everything I have learned about China
as President and before and everything I have learned about human nature
in over half a century of living now convinces me that we have a far
greater chance of having a positive influence on China's actions if we
welcome China into the world community, instead of shutting it out.
Under this agreement, some of China's most important decisions for
the first time will be subject to the review of an international body,
with rules and binding dispute settlement. Now, opponents say this
doesn't matter; China will just break its promises. Well, any of you who
follow these WTO matters know that China is not the only person that
could be accused of not honoring the rulemaking process. If any of you
happen to be especially concerned about bananas and beef, you could
probably stand up and give a soliloquy on that. And now we in the United
States have been confronted with a very difficult decision, because
they've made a decision that we think is plainly wrong, in an area that
affects our export economy.
But I will say this: We're still better off having a system in which
actions will be subject to rules embraced and judgments passed by 135
nations. And we're far more likely to find acceptable resolutions to
differences of opinion in this context than if there is none at all.
The change this agreement can bring from outside is quite
extraordinary. But I think you could make an argument that it will be
nothing compared to the changes that this agreement will spark from the
inside out in China. By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to
import more of our products; it is agreeing to import one of democracy's
most cherished values, economic freedom. The more China liberalizes its
economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people,
their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of
enterprise. And when individuals have the power not just to dream but to
realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say.
Already, more and more, China's best and brightest are starting
their own companies or seeking jobs with foreign-owned companies, where
generally they get higher pay, more respect, and a better working
environment. In fits and starts, for the first time, China may become a
society where people get ahead based on what they know rather than who
they know. Chinese firms, more and more, are realizing that unless they
treat employees with respect, they will lose out in the competition for
top talent. The process will only accelerate if China joins the WTO, and
we should encourage it because it will lift standards for Chinese
workers and their expectations.
There's something even more revolutionary at work here. By lowering
the barriers that protect state-owned industries, China is speeding the
process that is removing Government from vast areas of people's lives.
In the past, virtually every Chinese citizen woke up in an apartment
or a house owned by the Government, went to work in a factory or a farm
run by the Government, and read
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newspapers published by the Government. State-run workplaces also
operated the schools where they sent their children, the clinics where
they received health care, the stores where they bought food. That
system was a big source of the Communist Party's power. Now people are
leaving those firms. And when China joins the WTO, they will leave them
faster.
The Chinese Government no longer will be everyone's employer,
landlord, shopkeeper, and nanny all rolled into one. It will have fewer
instruments, therefore, with which to control people's lives. And that
may lead to very profound change.
A few weeks ago, the Washington Post had a good story about the
impact of these changes on the city of Shenyang. Since 1949, most of the
people of Shenyang have worked in massive state-run industries. But as
these old factories and mills shut down, people are losing their jobs
and their benefits. Last year, Beijing announced it was going to be
awarding bonus checks to Chinese citizens to celebrate China's 50th
anniversary under communism. But Shenyang didn't have the money to pay,
and there was a massive local protest.
To ease tensions, the local government has given the people a
greater say in how their city is run. On a limited basis, citizens now
have the right to vote in local elections--not exactly a democracy; the
party still puts up the candidate and decides who can vote, but it is a
first step. And it goes beyond Shenyang. Local elections now are held in
the vast majority of the country's 900,000 villages.
When asked why, one party official in Shenyang said, ``This is the
beginning of a process. We realize that in order to improve social
control, we have got to let the masses have a say.'' Well, sooner or
later that official will find that the genie of freedom will not go back
into the bottle. As Justice Earl Warren once said, ``Liberty is the most
contagious force in the world.''
In the new century, liberty will spread by cell phone and cable
modem. In the past year, the number of Internet addresses in China has
more than quadrupled from 2 million to 9 million. This year, the number
is expected to grow to over 20 million. When China joins the WTO, by
2005, it will eliminate tariffs on information technology products,
making the tools of communication even cheaper, better, and more widely
available. We know how much the Internet has changed America, and we are
already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China.
Now, there's no question China has been trying to crackdown on the
Internet. Good luck! [Laughter] That's sort of like trying to nail Jell-
O to the wall. [Laughter] But I would argue to you that their effort to
do that just proves how real these changes are and how much they
threaten the status quo. It's not an argument for slowing down the
effort to bring China into the world; it's an argument for accelerating
that effort. In the knowledge economy, economic innovation and political
empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in
hand.
Now, of course, bringing China into the WTO doesn't guarantee that
it will choose political reform. But accelerating the progress, the
process of economic change will force China to confront that choice
sooner, and it will make the imperative for the right choice stronger.
And again I ask, if China is willing to take this risk--and these
leaders are very intelligent people; they know exactly what they're
doing--if they're willing to take this risk, how can we turn our backs
on the chance to take them up on it?
Now, I want to be clear. I understand that this is not, in and of
itself, a human rights problem. But still, it is likely to have a
profound impact on human rights and political liberty. Change will only
come through a combination of internal pressure and external validation
of China's human rights struggle. We have to maintain our leadership in
the latter as well, even as the WTO contributes to the former.
We sanctioned China under the International Religious Freedom Act
last year. We're again sponsoring a resolution in the U.N. Human Rights
Commission condemning China's human rights record this year. We will
also continue to press China to respect global norms on
nonproliferation. And we will continue to reject the use of force as a
means to resolve the Taiwan question, making absolutely clear that the
issues between Beijing and Taiwan must be resolved peacefully and with
the assent of the people of Taiwan. There must be a shift from threat to
dialog across the Taiwan Strait. And we will continue to encourage both
sides to seize this opportunity after the Taiwan election.
In other words, we must continue to defend our interests and our
ideals with candor and consistency. But we can't do that by isolating
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China from the very forces most likely to change it. Doing so would be a
gift to the hardliners in China's Government who don't want their
country to be part of the world, the same people willing to settle
differences with Taiwan by force, the same people most threatened by our
alliance with Japan and Korea, the same people who want to keep the
Chinese military selling dangerous technologies around the world, the
same people whose first instinct in the face of opposition is to throw
people in prison. If we want to strengthen their hand within China, we
should reject the China-WTO agreement.
Voting against PNTR won't free a single prisoner or create a single
job in America or reassure a single American ally in Asia. It will
simply empower the most rigid antidemocratic elements in the Chinese
Government. It would leave the Chinese people with less contact with the
democratic world and more resistance from their Government to outside
forces. Our friends and allies would wonder why, after 30 years of
pushing China in the right direction, we turned our backs, now that they
finally appear to be willing to take us up on it.
I find it encouraging that the people with the greatest interest in
seeing China change agree with this analysis. The people of Taiwan
agree. Despite the tensions with Beijing, they are doing everything they
can to cement their economic ties with the mainland, and they want to
see China in the WTO.
The people of Hong Kong agree. I recently received a letter from
Martin Lee, the leader of Hong Kong's Democratic
Party, who has spent a lifetime struggling for free elections and free
expression for his people. He wrote to me that this agreement, and I
want to quote it, ``represents the best long-term hope for China to
become a member of good standing in the international community. We fear
that should ratification fail, any hope for political and legal reform
process would also recede.'' Martin Lee wants us to vote in favor of
PNTR.
Most evangelicals who have missions in China also want China in the
WTO. They know it will encourage freedom of thought and more contact
with the outside world.
Many of the people who paid the greatest price under Chinese
repression agree, too. Ren Wanding is one of the
fathers of the Chinese human rights movement. In the late 1970's, he was
thrown into prison for founding the China Human Rights League. In the
1980's, he helped lead the demonstration in Tiananmen Square. In the
1990's, he was thrown in prison yet again. Yet, he says of this deal,
``Before, the sky was black. Now it is light. This can be a new
beginning.''
For these people, fighting for freedom in China is not an academic
exercise or a chance to give a speech that might be on television. It is
their life's work. And for many of them, they have risked their lives to
pursue it. I believe if this agreement were a Trojan Horse, they would
be smart enough to see it. They are telling us that it's the right thing
to do, and they are plainly right.
So if you believe in a future of greater openness and freedom for
the people of China, you ought to be for this agreement. If you believe
in a future of greater prosperity for the American people, you certainly
should be for this agreement. If you believe in a future of peace and
security for Asia and the world, you should be for this agreement. This
is the right thing to do. It's an historic opportunity and a profound
American responsibility.
I'll do all I can to convince Congress and the American people to
support it. And today I ask for your help.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 3:50 p.m. in the Kenny Auditorium. In his
remarks, he referred to William R. Brody, president, Johns Hopkins
University; and Paul Wolfowitz, dean, and Joanne Brainard, executive
assistant to the associate dean for student affairs, Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies. The President also referred to
WTO, the World Trade Organization; and PNTR, permanent normal trade
relations.