Human Rights China

Sudden, extraordinary tension between the United States and China threatens to back President Clinton into a corner over the issue of renewing most-favored-nation trade status for China in June. If Clinton doesn't renew MFN--which allows Chinese goods into the U.S. market on terms accorded other trading partners--U.S. business prospects in China, which is growing into one of the world's largest markets, could suffer a long-term body blow.

China's most famous dissident left Beijing suddenly Sunday, a day after he was released by police after a brief detention. Wei Jingsheng's abrupt disappearance came as the official New China News Agency accused him of violating his parole, and police extended a crackdown on dissidents by taking away a prominent student leader of the 1989 Tian An Men Square protests. Wei's secretary, Tong Yi, told reporters that the veteran activist had departed voluntarily.

President Bush vetoed legislation Monday that would have limited the renewal of China's special trade privileges with the United States next year, saying that Beijing's trade retaliation would "cost us . . . thousands of American jobs." Citing the bill sponsors' goals of greater human rights in China, freer trade and weapons restrictions, Bush said that "engagement through our democratic, economic and educational institutions instead of confrontation offers the best hope for reform in China."

To bystanders on the Pacific Rim--especially to Hong Kong--the battle between President Bush and Congress over China's trade status has been like watching an accident happen in their own back yard. They see it as a threat to themselves and beyond their control. Strictly speaking, the dispute is between Washington and Beijing. But Hong Kong's economy is so blended with China's that U.S. termination of Beijing's most-favored-nation trading privileges would cost the British Crown Colony up to $4.

Has America lost all sense of outrage over China's human rights abuses? That question must be asked as China completes what is, by any reckoning, its worst year in human rights since the beginning of the 1990s. Let's briefly sum up what has happened in China over the last 12 months. The Communist Party regime has carried out its nationwide crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, detaining an estimated 35,000 people and sentencing four to as much as 18 years in prison.

Although they have settled their differences on trade, China and the Clinton Administration are now locked in a bitter international battle over human rights that will come to a head within the next two weeks. At issue is a proposed U.N.

In a move clearly meant to defuse an annual U.N. debate over its human rights record, China has announced it will sign one of two key human rights treaties by year's end, state-run media here said Tuesday.

Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu said Monday that his nation seeks closer economic and diplomatic ties with China, but he urged China to facilitate such cooperation by improving its human-rights record. "Japan will cooperate as much as it can in China's policies of reform and opening to the outside world," Kaifu said at a news conference.

For just a moment, it's time for the United States to put aside its many disagreements over what to do about China and breathe a small sigh of relief and enjoy some self-respect. By one fairly low standard, at least, we Americans look pretty good in our China policy. At least we're not France. In its approach to China, France makes the United States look almost constant, principled and high-minded.

The Clinton Administration is preparing to ask U.S. companies to advance the cause of human rights in their operations overseas, although it has failed repeatedly to win backing from the American business community for the effort. The White House is planning to release soon a series of "voluntary" business principles for overseas conduct that were drawn up with China in mind.