U.S. Policy Toward China | Introduction
On June 19, 1995, Chinese authorities arrested American citizen Harry Wu on charges of spying, an act punishable by death. Wu, a Chinese-born human rights activist, had entered China to investigate human rights abuses in the communist nation’s laogai (prison system). During previous trips to China, Wu had gathered evidence of what he alleged was slave labor by approximately ten million prisoners at more than one thousand forced labor camps, including the manufacture of goods exported to America. For nineteen years, Wu himself had been imprisoned in the laogai for criticizing China’s support of the Soviet Union’s 1956 invasion of Hungary.
Following Wu’s arrest, human rights activists and the U.S. government protested vehemently and demanded Wu’s immediate release. According to the Washington Post, the filing of criminal charges against Wu amounted to “a test of the whole relationship between the United States and China.” On August 24, 1995, China relented and expelled Wu from the country.
The Tiananmen Square massacre
Wu’s arrest came two weeks after the sixth anniversary of another test of U.S.-China relations: the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which Chinese troops crushed a prodemocracy/proreform demonstration in Beijing by indiscriminately shooting and killing hundreds of college students and other demonstrators. In the aftermath of the crackdown, many Americans expressed outrage and insisted that the United States impose economic sanctions to punish the Chinese government.
Human rights activists and other Americans urged the United States to revoke China’s most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status. Reviewed annually according to U.S. law, MFN affords China, the world’s eleventhlargest trading nation, the same tariff treatment as most other U.S. trading partners. Without MFN, China could lose billions of dollars in trade with the United States. China is the fourth-largest exporter of goods to America, and much of its economy is dependent on U.S. trade. With exports to America four times greater than imports, China derived a surplus of nearly $30 billion from U.S. trade in 1994.
By revoking MFN, activists and others maintained, America could send a powerful message to China’s leaders that brutal acts such as the Tiananmen Square massacre would not be tolerated. In addition, they asserted that such a move would hurt China economically and thereby force it to hold human rights in higher regard. However, MFN has been renewed each year since the massacre. In 1993, Bill Clinton attached a condition of human rights progress to the annual renewal of MFN, but he withdrew the proviso one year later, announcing that China had made “overall, significant progress.”
Human rights are paramount
Many commentators continue to criticize China’s human rights record. In January 1995, Winston Lord, assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, declared, “Frankly, on the human rights front, the situation has deteriorated. They’re rounding up dissidents, harassing them more.” One month later, the U.S. State Department proclaimed that China’s human rights record was bleaker than ever, with continuing “widespread and well documented” violations of “internationally accepted norms.” Human rights activists point out that China’s communist government denies its people three avenues to improved human rights: an independent judicial system to challenge the government; a free press; and grassroots nongovernmental groups, which are outlawed.
Some continue to press for the removal of China’s MFN status. In May 1995, one such advocate, Frank R. Wolf, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade that China’s human rights violations were egregious. Wolf argued that in addition to forced prison labor, China compels women to undergo abortions and sterilizations under its one-child-percouple population control policy. Wolf also testified that Chinese authorities are trafficking human organs taken from executed prisoners and that “human fetuses are being sold as health food in government-run hospitals and private clinics.”
These and other charges against China have caused many U.S. companies to reconsider conducting business there. At least two—Levi-Strauss and Timberland—regard human rights in China more important than profitable ventures. In 1993, both companies terminated operations in China, citing pervasive human rights violations. According to Orville Schell, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Freedom Forum, “Unless you think humankind survives by commerce alone, you cannot but be alarmed at the bleakness of China spiritually, culturally, and politically.”
Keeping business and trade in mind
In response to demands that China be punished for violating human rights, many observers have countered that America’s economic ties should be maintained or strengthened in order to let China’s growing market economy produce improved human rights. They argue that through trade, joint ventures, and other business arrangements, American-style capitalism—and Western values of democracy and freedom— will take root and eventually permeate Chinese society. Upon renewing MFN in May 1994, Bill Clinton remarked that trade “offers us the best opportunity to lay the basis for long-term sustainable progress on human rights.” According to Kent Wiedemann, a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, “Through trade, U.S. concepts filter into the consciousness of all Chinese. Opening markets for America’s idea industries [compact discs, computer software, and movies] . . . spread U.S. values and ideals.”
A growing number of U.S. companies, attracted by plentiful, cheap labor and other incentives, have entered into partnerships with Chinese businesspeople. Lino Piedra, director of international affairs for the Chrysler Corporation, argues that these joint ventures benefit Chinese society: “In a joint venture, the only option is to be there or not be there, and by being there our standards and Western influences contribute to social progress.”
Many business and foreign policy experts contend that America’s business ties with China are too important to allow every issue of human rights to jeopardize the relationship. They also disagree that U.S. companies should play a strong role in improving human rights in China. United States–China Business Council analyst Dan Martin went so far as to say, “It should not be the burden of the business community to fix human rights abuses.” Piedra adds, “Unless we went on some sort of scavenger hunt all over China, how can we check out all of a [joint venture] partner’s operations?” In the business community and elsewhere, some Americans argue that U.S. criticism of human rights abuses amounts to hypocrisy. According to the South China Morning Post, media mogul Ted Turner “told a conference in Hong Kong that countries such as the United States should look to their own problems before criticizing China for its human rights record.”
Whether they are more supportive of human rights or of business in China, many people acknowledge the significance of China as an economic partner and the importance of good relations with the Asian power. Some believe that these factors outweigh concern for human rights. According to Newsday columnist Robert Reno: “The U.S. corporate presence in China has become so huge and so lucrative that the time for talking about punishing China for being beastly to its dissidents has long past.” Some experts suggest that because of the extent of this presence, the U.S. government is unlikely to be adamant about improved human rights conditions.
In March 1995, the Clinton administration considered recommendations from both human rights activists and business leaders and lobbyists when it drafted a voluntary code of conduct for U.S. businesses operating abroad. The code, not specifically mentioning China, asks U.S. business leaders to set a good example by refusing to allow discrimination in the workplace and respecting the right of free association and collective bargaining. Whether this code has a positive effect on human rights remains to be seen.
The question of whether U.S. policy should stress human rights or economic engagement with China is the main focus of At Issue: U.S. Policy Toward China. Many of the viewpoints in this anthology were written in anticipation of Clinton’s 1994 decision on whether or not to renew China’s MFN status; the authors present cogent arguments for and against linking the issues of human rights and trade. Other viewpoints discuss China’s potential military threat, the protection of American intellectual property rights, and other issues that affect U.S.-Chinese relations.
