On May 19, President Clinton announced that he would be renewing China's trading privileges in spite of its human rights record, and against the wishes of over sixty percent of Americans who are opposed to trading with the oppressive communist regime. Why is the U.S. cracking down on smaller nations for alleged human rights abuses while extending favorable treatment to one of the most oppressive governments in the world?
Most Favored Nation (MFN) status was granted to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 and has been renewed on a yearly basis ever since. MFN allows the PRC access to U.S. markets at tariff rates that average six percent. Nations without the designation face a forty-four percent tariff. Most nations have MFN with the exception of six including Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. Clinton has until June 3 to formally notify Congress of his decision. From that point, Congress has 90 days to reverse his decision. (The Washington Post, 5-20-97).
"We will link China's trading privileges to its human rights record..." --Candidate Bill Clinton, Los Angeles World Affairs Council, 8-13-92.
In light of the sanctimonious air the United States assumes when dealing with the faults of alleged recalcitrants such as Iraq, Libya or Burma, it is almost surprising that the U.S. will fall all over itself in extending preferential treatment to a communist regime that remains unrepentant for its atrocities. The most compelling example of communist Chinese repression occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the policies that led to that massacre are still in place, underwritten by trade with the United States.
Ironically, the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred on June 3, 1989, the day President Bush was to inform Congress of his decision to renew MFN for the PRC. It is reported that 4,000 civilians lost their lives in that horrific slaughter, many of whom were run over by tanks. MFN was renewed anyway, ostensibly to encourage the communist Chinese government to change its ways through "constructive engagement."
Even as the PRC government continues its unabashed repression against segments of its own population, President Clinton hides behind the same "constructive engagement" excuse. "I believe if we were to revoke normal trade status," he told a group of business executives at the White House, "it would cut off our contact with the Chinese people and undermine our influence with the Chinese government." (The Washington Post, 5-20-97). The element of duplicity in this policy is unmistakable.
More than just granting Red China an open door to the U.S. market, the American political establishment is implementing a Chinese "Marshall Plan". The Chinese economy is growing by leaps and bounds, fueled by a trade deficit against the U.S. of $35 billion a year, almost as large as the U.S. trade deficit with Japan. It is hard to shop at many U.S. stores and buy something that is not made in China. The U.S. market is flooded with toys, shoes and gadgets manufactured by cheap Chinese labor. Scores of U.S. companies are moving their manufacturing operations into China and exporting the finished product back to the U.S.
The political elite are also pumping up communist China's military capabilities with a massive infusion of weapons technology and materials. "According to the Seattle Times, McDonnell-Douglas closed a recent deal to build jets in China by offering tooling technology that is now being used in the Red Chinese missile program. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company secured a joint-venture agreement with a government-owned aviation company by providing 'enough technical data to fill a library.' In fact, according to the Journal, no American firm seeking access to China 'can expect an entry pass without divulging technology early and often.'" (Our 'Business' with Beijing, The New American magazine, 4-28-97).
Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute points out that "just as we opened the floodgates of American technology to the Soviets, thereby enabling them to achieve a quantum leap in military power...so today we are selling China some of our most sensitive technology, and at bargain-basement prices. We have recently permitted the PRC to obtain the technology to manufacture its own Global Positioning System, which is the key to the most accurate targeting systems for cruise missiles and other advanced weapons. We have permitted the Chinese to buy technology used to build 'stealth' aircraft, and we are permitting them to buy, at auction, entire defense factories, until very recently used to manufacture state-of-the-art military components, from advanced lasers to exotic missile skins.'" (Honoring the Butcher of Beijing, The New American magazine, 1-20-97).
The sell-out of America's interests is not limited to the siphoning of American wealth and technology into the Peoples Republic of China, creating a rival superpower in the way the Soviet power was set up. The U.S. has also leased the former Long Beach Naval Station to the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), a 600 ship corporation supervised by the Peoples Liberation Army (the one that "liberated" Tiananmen Square in 1989). COSCO is the same shipping company involved in smuggling the 2,000 AK-47's that were bound for California gang members and seized in Oakland last year. While COSCO gets America's largest container port, the U.S. Pacific Fleet is based in San Diego Bay. A single ship sunk in the bay's narrow inlet would effectively cork the Navy's ability to defend the U.S. in time of war. This action is being resisted and is now in litigation but, if the past is any guide to the future, we will see this operation in place soon enough.
Complicating strategic matters, COSCO has also leased the anchor ports on each side of the Panama Canal from the U.S. controlled government of Panama. The implications of this deal were clear to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA). During a March 19th session of the House National Security Committee, Hunter stated that "it looks like where ever the Chinese are going with major placements of companies in this hemisphere, they're [thinking in] strategic [terms]...." (Red China's Ocean Invasion, The New American 5-12-97). This is especially ominous considering the Chinese threat in November, 1995 to "nuke" Los Angeles in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
If COSCO's new accommodations are causing any national security concerns, you wouldn't know by the way Washington officials hobnobbed with Chinese PLA General Chi. In 1989 Time magazine pointed out that "as chief of staff, Chi bears a major responsibility for the violence unleashed upon Beijing's citizenry by his troops." General Chi was originally scheduled to be received in Washington on December 10th, but that was "International Human Rights Day" and it wouldn't have been good press playing host to the officer who carried out the Tiananmen Square massacre. The flattery was moved up a day earlier and, at an honor cordon outside of of the Pentagon, then Secretary of Defense, William Perry, introduced General Chi as "my colleague, General Chi." Later, at a forum for military and diplomatic officials at the National Defense University, General Chi had the nerve to declare that "not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square". Eyewitness accounts put the Tiananmen death toll at 4,000. Perhaps Chi's penchant for brazen untruths and domestic bloodletting explains his cordial relationship with those in power in the U.S.
"I am moving, therefore, to de-link human rights from the annual extension of Most Favored Nation trading status for China." --President Bill Clinton, announcing MFN status for China, White House, 5-26-94.
Besides Tiananmen, there are other domestic policies that have made the PRC the darling of America's ruling elite. Unofficial Christianity in the form of the 'house church' movement is growing at a rapid pace and the PRC government has met the threat with the resurrection of the Red Guard - "a reserve force of zealous young people for the Party's undertaking." These thugs have been unleashed on the underground church, using "any conceivable means" to "break up the underground religious influence". Beijing has issued a wanted list of 4,000 Protestant pastors, along with instructions to severely punish those who in the name of religious conviction oppose certain government policies such as abortion and birth control. Hundreds of laity and clergy have been arrested and sentenced to "reeducation through labor". Hundreds more have been beaten and tortured and their properties destroyed or confiscated. "More Christians are in jail in China because of their faith than any other nation in the world," wrote Jeff Taylor of Compass Direct news service. (For the Sake of Their Faith, The New American magazine, 3-17-97).
Besides wholesale religious persecution, the Chinese rulers enforce a most rigid population control policy, forcing abortions and killing newborns that are not "authorized". The PRC is a population control model being touted by the abortion advocates worldwide who believe that human life is a parasite and a blight on their mother earth. The ruling elite in America are also avid proponents of this belief and, thus, we find another reason for bestowal of Most Favored Nation status on the murderous Red Chinese regime.
The establishment media would have us believe that it is PRC diplomatic overtures, greased by illegal campaign contributions, that explain the obvious increase in Chinese power and influence in America, but this is a red herring. Former presidential advisor, George Stephanopoulos, revealed the true origin of the Chinese Marshall plan on ABC This Week (3-16-97). He said that the Clinton administration's policies toward the PRC reflected the influence of the "Council on Foreign Relations, [international bankers] Lehman Brothers [and] Goldman Sachs"; in other words, the invisible government of the United States.
The role that China is being prepared to play in the emerging world order remains to be seen. We may be certain that the same powers that are building China up militarily and economically are gutting out America's military and economic strength. Rather than converting China to a free and open society, the U.S. is being converted into the Chinese model -- a system Beijing calls a "market economy with socialist characteristics." This is precisely what world socialism is. World socialism is being promoted worldwide by the system of international finance, and China's perfect compliance with that agenda is precisely the reason why they are a member of good standing in the world community of nations.
The current American leadership stands condemned by two fundamental principles promoted by American leaders in the past. One is the totalitarian nature of communism and its doctrine of world conquest and its inherent antagonism to traditional American freedoms and inalienable human rights. For most of this century, Americans have believed, especially during the Cold War, that communism was to be resisted whereever it was making advances in the world. Now that this "Cold War" is supposedly over, the American political elite are making bold moves to strengthen a communist regime at the cost of America's strategic and economic strength.
The second principle promoted hypocritically by the current American regime, and only to promote its own interests, is the concept of human rights. Human rights have been trampled on with impunity in China and MFN for China reveals the American regime's duplicity in the cause of human rights. America's leaders choose sanctions or "constructive engagement" depending on the other nation's compliance to globalist objectives, which have nothing to do with human rights.
One day soon, Americans will wake up and realize that while they were going to work, voting, paying their taxes and coping with the cares of this life, their country was sold out from under them to a world dictatorship that cares nothing about their happiness or wellbeing. It will then be too late to address the treasonous acts of American politicians who sold the country for their own profit. It will also be a fair recompense for a nation that has chosen its creature comforts over truth and righteousness.
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Written 5/97