Activist Wants Beijing Out of WTO
AP Online
Mittwoch, 8. Dezember 1999 23:13:00
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.@bThe information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of the Associated Press.
By DAVID BRISCOE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- China would make an unreliable partner in the
World Trade Organization and does not deserve permanent normal
trade status with the United States, former Chinese political
prisoner Harry Wu told a congressional panel Wednesday.
Harry Wu also accused the Clinton administration of ignoring
human rights in favor of trade and foreign investment.
"Perhaps one day the United States will try to promote human
rights in China with the same zeal it seeks market access," Wu
said at a hearing of the House International Relations subcommittee
on human rights. "I hope so."
The hearing was intended to give Congress an early start on what
is likely to be one of next year's most contentious issues,
A WTO opponent, Lori Wallach, president of Global Trade Watch,
told lawmakers that nothing in WTO rules requires that Congress
give China permanent normal trade status. The classification, once
known as "most-favored nation" status, now is granted on an
annual basis.
Wu, organizer of a campaign against Chinese slave labor camps,
said economic progress will not bring openness to China.
"The Chinese Communist Party is fundamentally threatened by any
popular group," he said, even by "middle-age women organized to
practice meditation exercises in the park."
Wu said democracy protesters are not the only ones subject to
arrest and torture.
He said accepting China into the trading agreement and granting
Beijing permanent normal trade status with the United States would
be giving communist leaders "a green light to abuse their
citizens."
The White House is working to win congressional approval for
China's acceptance into the WTO. But all the witnesses at the
hearing opposed the idea.
Asked why no free-trade advocates testified, the subcommittee
chairman, Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, said, "They
could have come if they wanted." He said the committee would
schedule administrations witnesses at future sessions.
Few committee members attended the hearing, held during the
congressional year-end recess as a follow-up to the collapsed WTO
talks in Seattle.