WASHINGTON — America is preparing to embark on a great congressional battle over trade with China. Once again, as in smaller skirmishes of the recent past, China's leading opponent will be the American labor movement.
Organized labor already is working hard to stop Congress from giving China normal trading rights permanently--thus eliminating the requirement of the last 20 years that these benefits can be extended to China only one year at a time.
American scholars and the business community often dismiss labor's complaints about China as self-serving, thinly disguised protectionism. They scoff that the AFL-CIO cares only about minimizing job loss to Chinese workers and competition with Chinese products.
Is that claim really accurate? Or might there in fact be plenty of other, legitimate reasons for the American labor movement to be concerned about China?
In fact, the right question to ask might be this one: Why is it that American politicians and intellectuals who once cheered on the AFL-CIO in pressing the cause of free labor in the Soviet Union and Poland won't give similar support when it comes to China?
China's treatment of labor unions is no better, and in some ways worse, than that of traditional Communist countries.
Independent unions are not permitted. The only organization that may represent workers is the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which is run by the Chinese Communist Party. The federation's president, Wei Jianxing, is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and helps run the party's security apparatus.
One of the contributing factors behind the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 was the leadership's fear that factory workers were beginning to join the demonstrations. A Chinese-style Solidarity movement is probably the Chinese regime's worst nightmare.
But hold on, say China's American defenders. China is changing. It is in the midst of implementing economic reforms.
True. And there's evidence to show that while these reforms may help the Chinese economy and foreign investors, they also make things even worse for Chinese workers.
A study last year by scholars at Australian National University compared the labor policies of China and Vietnam. Its conclusion was startling:
"The Vietnamese government has been more willing to grant trade unions some space to defend workers' interests, whereas the Chinese government has chosen to keep the unions under a tight rein."
