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July 19, 2000, Wednesday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

LENGTH: 13919 words

COMMITTEE: SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE

HEADLINE: U.S. SENATOR JESSE HELMS (R-NC) HOLDS HEARING ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF GRANTING PNTR TO CHINA

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS HOLDS HEARING ON

HUMAN RIGHTS, LABOR, TRADE AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF

GRANTING PNTR TO CHINA

JULY 19, 2000

SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR JESSE HELMS (R-NC), CHAIRMAN

U.S. SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR (R-IN)

U.S. SENATOR CHARLES HAGEL (R-NE)

U.S. SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH (R-OR)

U.S. SENATOR ROD GRAMS (R-MN)

U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS)

U.S. SENATOR CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY)

U.S. SENATOR JOHN ASHCROFT (R-MO)

U.S. SENATOR WILLIAM FRIST (R-TN)

U.S. SENATOR LINCOLN CHAFEE (R-RI)

U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR. (D-DE),

RANKING MEMBER

U.S. SENATOR PAUL S. SARBANES (D-MD)

U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD (D-CT)

U.S. SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA)

U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD (D-WI)

U.S. SENATOR PAUL DAVID WELLSTONE (D-MN)

U.S. SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (D-CA)

U.S. SENATOR ROBERT G. TORRICELLI (D-NJ)

GARY BAUER, CHAIRMAN, CAMPAIGN FOR WORKING FAMILIES

GEORGE F. BECKER, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, UNITED

STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA

KEVIN KEARNS, PRESIDENT, U.S. BUSINESS AND

INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL

DAI QING, CHINESE DISSIDENT

*** Elapsed Time 00:00, Eastern Time 14:42 ***

*

HELMS: The committee will come to order, and we welcome all the folks who are here today. That indicates you are interested in a very important proposal facing the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House has already voted.
I might add that, in addition to the death of a distinguished member of the Senate, Senator Hollings had a death in his family and he was supposed to be a witness. And Joe Biden, the ranking member, lost a very good friend of his, the mayor of one of the major cities in his state. So we are being crippled a little bit by sadness, but we'll proceed anyhow.

We will take no action today, but I discussed it with the leadership of the Senate, and since we will not vote on anything, even though there is an objection filed in the Senate against meeting of committees, this one will not be violative of the Senate's rules.

Today the Foreign Relations Committee holds its second hearing on legislation to grant permanent normal trade relations to communist China. Our purpose today is to consider how PNTR will impact China's behavior in human and labor rights and China's record in failing to abide by its trade and economic agreements with the United States, agreements already in effect.

Now, this debate is not merely about how to increase exports to China or about maintaining dialogue with China, it's about what America stands for as a nation. The United States is not France. Morality is still an integral part of America's identity, America's foreign policy interest and America's influence in the world.

So I believe personally, and as a senator, that jettisoning the leverage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment on communist China undercuts American efforts to defend the fundamental principles of freedom.

Now, I do not believe the American people will countenance a foreign policy which looks the other way: looks the other way when the Chinese dictatorship tries to censor the Internet with American companies' help, when the Chinese dictatorship throws into jail members of the China Democracy Party with no semblance whatsoever of due process, and when the Chinese dictatorship detains and tortures thousands of harmless followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

So when the Chinese dictatorship brutalizes their underground Christians and Roman Catholic priests by arresting, torturing and in some cases throwing them out of the windows, when the Chinese dictatorship occupies and suppresses Buddhist Tibet and Muslim Xinjiang, when the Chinese dictatorship permits no labor unions except those labor unions which it can control, when the Chinese dictatorship subsidizes state enterprises with the confiscated savings of low- income workers, when the Chinese dictatorship permits rampant piracy of the intellectual property of American citizens -- that is to say, our software, our videos, our CDs.

Now then, opinion poll after opinion poll has shown that a majority of Americans oppose giving normal trade status to a dictatorship with almost no rule of law in the political realm and precious little in the economic realm, even after years of so-called reforms.

The American people instinctively know what the foreign policy experts just can't seem to grasp, that is that China's government won't be a civilized actor in the world unless and until it respects civil liberties and basic freedoms for working people and allows a true free enterprise system to take root.

Now, to discuss these matters we are delighted to welcome today's witnesses. We have a distinguished American, Mr. Gary Bauer, of American values, who has spoken up courageously for victims of Chinese communist tyranny fighting to exercise their God-given rights to freedom of worship and expression.

Mr. George Becker is a major leader in organized labor as president of the United Steelworkers. And we are pleased that he could and would rearrange his plans to be with us here today.

And finally, Ms. Dai Qing, a proponent of greater liberties in her native China, who comes to tell us why she believes that so-called PNTR is a good thing.

As I say, Joe Biden had the death of a friend, the mayor of one of his -- I think his home city.

(UNKNOWN): Yes.

HELMS: And he felt that he ought to go there. And so he will not be here today. Gary Bauer is here.

So, Mr. Bauer, we will hear from you first. We welcome you. I hope you're not out of breath.

BAUER: A little bit, Senator, but it's great to be here.

HELMS: Well, it's great to have you.

BAUER: Hope we didn't hold you up.

Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I'll submit a prepared statement for the record and...

HELMS: Which will be made a part of the printed record.

BAUER: Fantastic. What I'd like to do is just take my five or six minutes to talk about what I think is the core issue anytime we're talking about China and about trade and about related issues.

BAUER: First of all, let me say it's a real honor to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This committee has been a central player in the last four or five decades in forming American foreign policy and helped to do it all during the time of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. And the committee has a great history that it can be proud of of being right on a whole lot of issues. So hopefully, you'll be right about this issue, too.

About 11 years ago, all of us sat in our living rooms and our dens and we watched these incredible pictures on television coming out of China. We watched students and housewives and workers gather in Tiananmen Square in what, at the beginning, was a relatively small demonstration that the authorities in Beijing tried to ignore at first.

As we all know, while Beijing waited, hoping that the crowd would dissipate, it did the exact opposite. Over several days, the crowd got larger. Workers began to join in -- others, dissidents, intellectuals, et cetera. And the people in the crowd began to sign petitions and to insist in a variety of ways on the basic human rights that people all over the world want and that people in the United States take for granted: the right to vote, the right to worship as you see fit, the right to have a job, the right to decide what size your family's going to be.

As the crowd got larger and larger, Beijing could no longer ignore what was going on, as we all know, and so they sent the People's Liberation Army into Tiananmen Square. I remember thinking at the time -- and I would just point out that some of the senators -- that any time you see an army with the word liberation in its title, it almost always is an oppressor army; that if they say it's the liberation army, its purpose is to do the exact opposite.

And of course, that's what the People's Liberation Army was being sent into Tiananmen Square to do that day.

I remember some of the images. Some of them have become famous: that gentleman standing in front of the tank, an incredible picture of the spirit of one individual. I remember how relieved I felt when the driver of the tank blinked first and took the tank over to the right. And then I remember how shocked I was to see this one guy move to the right and put himself in harm's way again.

We didn't find out what happened to him and what happened to that particular tank crew, but we do know that the People's Liberation Army went on and entered the square. And they ordered the people in the square to leave immediately. They refused. They ordered them again, and they refused.

This happened repeatedly until eye-witnesses said that on one of those occasions, the army said, Leave now or we will shoot. And then something extraordinary happened. Eye-witnesses say that many people in the square reached into their pockets and they did not pull out guns, but they pulled out copies of our Declaration of Independence. And they waved copies of our Declaration of Independence in the faces of the People's Liberation Army before that army opened fire and killed hundreds and, by some estimates, thousands of people in that square.

Incidentally, Beijing still insists that this event did not take place; that there was no shooting in Tiananmen Square. This is a classic sign of a totalitarian government: the big lie technique. It just denies a fact that people saw clearly with their own eyes, believing that if they repeat a lie often enough, that the truth will be forgotten.

Well, I remember thinking about it at the time, what an extraordinary thing that was. Here were these Chinese citizens, most of whom had never been to the United States.

BAUER: And yet, when they were faced with the possibility of their own death, they waved copies of our Declaration of Independence, not the Canadian bill of rights, not the Brazilian statute of rights or the Italian constitution, but our Declaration of Independence.

And I think the reason they did that, as we all know, is that the Declaration, and particularly the second paragraph of it, has been a beacon of liberty for people all through the world. The paragraph that begins: "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights."

I think that the current debate we are having over PNTR for China has very little to do with China and has very little to do with trade. It is rather a debate about the United States, about who we are, about what we believe, and about whether or not those words that those Chinese students were willing to die for, in fact, will be the words that guide American foreign policy toward China.

China derisively says the words don't mean anything to us, that we're a money-bags democracy, and that money will trump everything. I believe the words do mean something to us.

One final comment: Many -- some on this committee, certainly many in Washington, perhaps many in the audience today, would argue that trade with China will change China. I would argue that trade with China has already changed the United States. It's making us forget who we are and what we believe.

In fact, it's created a China lobby in the United States, which is a very power force, and has led good American companies, led by good American capitalists, to become apologists for Beijing's violations of human rights, for their military policies, for their threats on Taiwan and for a host of other things.

China always uses trade as a weapon in their foreign policy. I would advocate that we use trade to reflect on those deeply held values.

Finally, if the Senate insists on passing PNTR, I would beg you to add provisions dealing with human rights and with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I think we must do that, given our role in the world, and I think if did do that, it would be a healthy sign that our foreign policy was back on the right track.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HELMS: Well, thank you, sir.

Mr. Becker, we are delighted to have you here. You may proceed, sir.

BECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I'd like to compliment Mr. Bauer on his testimony. I will try not to touch on too many of the same spots that he did.

First of all, I represent the United Steelworkers of America, we -- some -- a union of some -- an industrial union of some 750,000 members in the United States and Canada, the majority of which are in the United States.

We view PNTR with China in a most critical, critical fashion. It's going to have a long effect -- long-term effect on our union, and we believe it's devastating to the national interest and to the ideals and values that we hold very near and dear in the United States.

I want to make one point very clear: We're not a protectionist union, unless you would consider protecting our ideals, our morals, our families, our communities as protectionist. In this regard, we certainly are protectionists.

We're a trading union, and we believe in trade on a global basis. If you would look at the makeup of the plants in which we represent, most of them are trading companies. But we part company -- we part company when we turn a blind eye and we let our leaders turn a blind eye and worship at the altar of the bond and stock markets and consider the bottom-line profits is what we really matters in the United States.

And we believe that we need to have a very cohesive foreign policy, but that the trade and the well-being of industrial America should not be sacrificed on those short-term profits or for foreign policy. Both administrations, the Democrat and the Republican administration, has carried the water of the multinational unions in the endeavor to do this.

BECKER: On PNTR, this is not a trade agreement. This is an agreement for financial institutions and for multinationals to allow them to build factories in China and export the goods back to the United States. They're looking for cheap labor. They're looking for the absence of environmental controls. They're looking for the maximum profits. And they would go from any country to country that's going to offer them the max return in that regards.

China has never lived up to any agreement that's been negotiated yet with them, they violated every one, and I think it stretches the imagination to believe that they're going to honor this one.

Second, on PNTR itself, all of the arrangements, or all of the agreements have not been negotiated. One of the most critical ones dealing with subsidies has not even been concluded. Manufacturers don't know what's going to happen with subsidies, how this is going to be treated. Whether it's going to be state-owned corporations that's going to have to live up to the general application of subsidies or not. And this could make a success or failure out of the agreement. And I don't see how anyone can seriously consider this until they know what's actually in the agreement and what's going to happen.

The second part, I would like to touch on China itself. When you look at the members of our union, I mean, most of them have either served in the military or they've had family members that served in the military. I've been in the military twice, at the tag end of World War II and back in during the Korean conflict.

This is the same communist China that we fought and tens of thousands of our sons and daughters sacrificed their lives to keep Korea from falling under the communist influence back in the '50s. Nothing has changed. China continues to condemn and be the enemy of our democracy in this country. They are ideologically opposed to us. They spread weapons of mass destruction openly and spread nuclear proliferation to North Korea, to Pakistan, to Iraq and Iran.

Today, we have tens of thousands of our youngsters that are at risk around China because of the saber rattling that takes place within that regime. The more powerful they become, the more arrogant and more aggressive they become as a nation.

They are a rogue nation. They torture -- and as Mr. Bauer said, they torture and kill their own people. They persecute those who believe in the Christian faith. They traffic in women and children. They have over 1,000 slave labor camps run by the military in China; 99 of those camps are listed by Dunn and Bradstreet as key manufacturing facilities. This is what we face.

Trade unionists who try to share in the wealth that they help create in China, in factories are repressed -- at the very least are fired or beaten, receive harsh prison sentences or they are killed, they simply disappear. Summary executions still take place in China.

Harry Wu, who is a leading dissident from China, spent over 19 years in slave labor camps. He's a steel worker. Many of those years were spent in camp -- I think it's Camp Number five, but I can't say absolutely sure with that -- but they produce steel -- as a prisoner that he spent this time in there.

BECKER: Nothing has changed with China.

I want to mention one other thing here. I made these -- I don't know exactly how to distribute these. I've had for many years a copy of the Saturday Evening Post, a May 30 issue, 1942. And it shows -- this was right after World War II started -- and it showed the alignment of the nations, the Axis and the Allies, and the resources they had to fight that war.

It's a caricature of six people around the table, Uncle Sam, John Bull and Joe Stalin. It shows -- and it shows the steel that they held -- the card is showing the amount of steel that those countries produced; 130 tons of steel -- a million tons of steel is what was produced by the Allies, 58 million tons of steel was produced by the Axis. And they were saying, in effect, that the war -- this was in 1942 in May -- that the war was over. We held the winning hand. And then we list that the things that the steel made that was absolutely necessary to fight a war at that time. And this turned out to be true. We had the industrial capacity to be able to fight and win that war.

We are losing that industrial capacity today. In the steel industry, in the electronics industry, as textiles, across the board. These are the plants that are leaving the United States for other countries. I think we need to consider this.

I know the world has changed. I know the need for precious metals and other industrial-based products, may be it's not quite as vital in the minds of many, but I would question -- I would question about us stripping the industrial capacity of the United States and being sent to other countries and let the industrialists do that.

In conclusion, I would say that China has not changed. This is the same China that we faced all along. It's still controlled by the communist leaders. Harry Wu has charged the United States in testimony before many committees that we are giving that nation the wealth and the technology to keep those people enslaved, and by pulling them close to our bosom with PNTR we are making a legitimate nation out of them. We are making them our partner. We're holding them up as somebody who's earned the right to be a trading partner of the United States. I think that's the wrong message that we should be sending.

Thank you.

HELMS: Thank you, sir, Mr. Becker. I believe you had a prepared statement.

BECKER: Yes, I do.

HELMS: You do. It will be printed in the record.

BECKER: Thank you. I would like this printed also, if I could.

HELMS: I think we should do that. And I tell you what, I don't know where the camera -- they've got them to assist somewhere. If it could be held up so that they really could focus.

Bertie (ph), where is the camera?

STAFF: Here's one right here, Senator.

HELMS: OK. Hold it up so they can get a shot of that if they want it.

Let Mr. Becker stand up.

Sort of an irregular exercise, but I remember seeing that. Somebody sent me one not long ago. I assume that the camera man, wherever he is -- it's one of these modern places.

And last, but not least, Ms. Dai Qing, we welcome you madam, and you may proceed.

Will he help you interpret? Is that your purpose? Very well.

DAI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just arrived here from Beijing, and I lived in Beijing 11 years ago, before the chairman cracked down. I used to be a national newspaper reporter and a columnist, and then I lost my job. And then I was arrested and stayed in the prison for 10 months. And now, I can't, you know -- I call myself as a free-lance writer and environmentalist, but actually, since 11 years ago, all my books were banned in this country and I have no chance to publish in this country.

DAI: And right now, yes, actually I'm jobless in the country. But this time, I'm a guest invited by the Goldman Environment Foundation in California.

And, yes, first, I'm going to give my statement. I'd rather use my language, use Chinese, and Mr. Hai Pai (ph) who will help me to translate into English.

(SPEAKING IN CHINESE)

HELMS: If you'd hold just one minute.

We have so many young people here today and we welcome you. Now did you understand that she's going to deliver the rest of her testimony in Chinese and it will be interpreted by the gentleman to her left?

(UNKNOWN): Although, Mr. Chairman, the first part of her testimony in English was superb.

HELMS: Yes, sir.

(LAUGHTER)

That makes me...

(CROSSTALK)

(UNKNOWN): Better than our Chinese.

(LAUGHTER)

TRANSLATOR: I thought that interpretation is not necessary.

(LAUGHTER)

HELMS: You may proceed.

DAI: Which -- what language? Chinese or English? Chinese.

DAI (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): First, I'm thankful for being invited here today and that including the two gentlemen to my right who are very concerned about China's environments and China's human rights conditions.

DAI: And the labor.

TRANSLATOR: And the labor condition, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

(UNKNOWN): You see, I'm not kidding here.

DAI (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): First, I have to say that, in general, China's human rights condition today still very much regretful. Although at very top level, there's no substantial policy change per se (inaudible) that there are substantial change in terms of human rights.

To say that China's environment -- I'm sorry -- human right conditions is better today, I'm comparing that to the period where Mao was still alive and those period before 1978 when the primary reason -- one of the reason I think China could be so much authoritarian is because China is very much isolated.

DAI: It's not one of the reason but the most important reason, is the basic reason.

DAI (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, to a large extent, the gentleman just now said about what he said about Tiananmen Square and the June 4 event is true. And even till today, China's government would not alter these official statements on the fact. The reason this could happen in China is because it's a one-party-ruled country.

Well, the human rights condition in China is very bad, not only because what we are saying that, but also including what the Chinese communists say the right to survive, or the survivability rights.

DAI (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): That right and that condition is also very bad, and that's due to, to a large extent, the policy of atone (ph).

DAI: Yes, we just want to ask why, you know, all the years, almost half a century, you know, in China, we have a peaceful, you know, this kind of situation. But why today the Chinese government feels that we have to seat (ph)? You know, this is -- no person hungry in this country, so this is the basic right.

And you know, my argue is, as the, you know, all the years past, the Chinese ordinary people have had some problem to hungry -- to be hungry, so this is because the dictatorship in this country.

And then the, now...

DAI (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): And I want to answer -- to tell why China, until this day, is still an authoritarian country, and how it is maintained until today. It is a government not by election, but by arms.

And what it did first -- very first is to abolish private ownership and therefore control the whole -- have the whole resources at their own command. With this total command of resources of the society, it maintains a large military army which is obedient to the wishes of the party. And then it uses the military and the police force to control the society in general.

What I didn't say just now is that one of the characteristics of the China and of now is that China entered in helping its change and that also including China and Jiang Zemin now.

What is important to me is not how we are going to bring a few good fellows like Harry Wu or others to have power in the government, but rather more important to deconstruct -- that's a structure that maintains an authoritarian government in the first place.

For the past to be deconstructed, China would go through the nourishment and encouragement of the private ownership and private economy and then leading up to a civil society.

DAI: A civil society with its independent benefits, independent voice and independent idea with -- and strong enough to limit the dictatorship.

DAI (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): And therefore, the PNTR could play a pivotal role in forming this civil society in China.

I do not agree with the gentleman just now who said that trading with China will only make those few rich, especially those bureaucrats. I think that trading with China will make many other middle-class people rich. With the trade, the China now is open to all sorts of influences and new sources and new views. Not only just businessmen but political activists, environmentalists, as well as the entrepreneurs and scholars and all that.

I like the idea that the United States Congress here has this annual review on China's human rights. Now, I wish it could be done on a day-to-day basis, if you wish. However, I think that it would be much better that, in addition to reviewing China's human rights conditions, that we can engage in China (inaudible) brought China into the international community and all its new ideas and influences. And therefore, we can facilitate a social change there.

DAI: Thank you.

TRANSLATOR: I have to add one more thing -- what I missed, I'm sorry. Dai Qing said that she wishes that it will be to the interest of the United States and China to have a better engaging relationship. I just want to add that.

DAI: Yes, I want to put more case about that. Maybe -- people think it's very, very simple, very small case. But I just want to let you know because I live in Beijing. And you see, in downtown, you know, in the downtown, the most crowded district in China, we call Wanfuching (ph), and there is a McDonald now.

DAI: And the banned authority, just want, you know, police another Hong Kong (inaudible), and, you know, ordered the McDonald go out. And then, you know, all of Chinese, you know, just watched this case. And then, the Americans invented something, and it depends on the law to protect itself, is only a company, but he did it. But in China, no one dares to protect themself against, you know, the government, so we saw this case.

Another case is all dam fighter. All, you know, environmentalists in China just want to show our thanks to the American government, because you are the first country to withdraw from financing support Three Gorges project. What your government announced is, if our American government don't want you to use the taxpayers' money to destroy our rivers, why should we, you know, spend the money to destroy other country's rivers?

So we really, you know, other -- you know, right now other developed country in Europe that just want you through support Three Gorges, you know, is the $70 billion to get money from this project, but the U.S. government is the first one.

And every -- you know, in my country, I -- I cannot say, I read Chinese, but, you know, lots of Chinese really know that in the history -- this gentleman just mentioned the Korean War, but you don't know the Korean War, not the ordinary people we are, that they -- it's not they want to have the war, even some Mao Zedong's very close comrades they against war. But only because China has the one-person dictatorship, these kind of political system, and then, you know, we have the terrible, the sad war between our two nations.

So -- but, you know, all history, the United States it was the country, it has been the country, it is the country since opium war -- opium war in 1840.

You know, American commercial, who's the only one, once you have normal trade with Chinese government. So, you know, we really don't want to hurt the feelings among -- you know, among the ordinary people. What I really hope, you know, support the PNTR, not a treaty. This is just want to show to the Chinese person that your air, you know, your spirit, yourself and that you are a strong country, but you -- when do, you know, when do the human rights and labor rights and everything emerge?

Thank you.

HELMS: Thank you.

If I understand the translation, you believe that PNTR will help nourish the independent, political and social forces in China; is that correct?

DAI: It really did.

HELMS: And also that it will help reduce government control and promote the rule of law.

Now, I'm not going to debate you, because you are one of the most dynamic witnesses we've had since I've been chairman of this committee.

(LAUGHTER)

And I just wish you folks out there could have seen the dynamism of this lady.

But tell me how you think this will happen, because it hasn't happened with any of the other influx of money and everything else to the present rulers of China.

TRANSLATOR: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, can you repeat that? It's kind of, the voice -- the microphone is...

HELMS: I tell you what I'm going to do, I'm going to wait and try to phrase it a little bit better. But thank you very much.

Let's see, we have one, two, three, four -- suppose we take about seven minutes on the first round. Russ was here first.

HELMS: All right.

Mr. Bauer, three members of the Helms team on the Foreign Relations Committee staff traveled to China last January and met with the underground Catholic bishop in Shanghai. Now the 80-year-old gentleman was under constant surveillance and was forced to live in squalor. Now this not hearsay; this is what my people saw. He was interrogated by internal security police both before and after my representatives managed to visit with him.

And my question is, one of them: Why do you think China's autocrats feel so threatened by a harmless elderly man, a Catholic priest, seeking to train priests and conduct worship, that they see the need to harass him?

BAUER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think it's for the same reason that tyrants get so upset when their people read the Declaration of Independence. Anybody that believes that we are created by God and that we have, as a matter of birthright, the right to vote, the right to free expression, that each individual is unique and distinct, and has...

HELMS: (inaudible)

BAUER: Yes, sir.

HELMS: Then you translate that for her.

TRANSLATOR: Oh, I'm sorry.

HELMS: Or did you understand? Did you understand what Mr. Bauer said?

TRANSLATOR: Frankly, I didn't catch much of what...

(CROSSTALK)

TRANSLATOR: She was asking some questions here just now.

BAUER: I think that's what threatens tyrants always. And certainly all major religions teach that each of us is a unique creature of God.

The Chinese also see what happened in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet empire, generally, when the church was so outspoken for individual liberty. One Chinese leader was quoted as saying, in a government newspaper, referring to religious belief in China: We will strangle the baby in its crib.

It was a little play on words, but the meaning of it was quite clear. They see religion generally as a being a threat to their ability to manipulate the people and to believing that they have no rights other than the rights that the government gives them.

I believe religious belief is a much greater threat to the Chinese government than building more McDonald's, you know, in Beijing or whatever.

HELMS: So that we won't appear to be...

(CROSSTALK)

TRANSLATOR: I think she understand that perfectly well.

HELMS: Pardon me?

TRANSLATOR: I think Dai Qing understand that perfectly well, the English.

HELMS: Very well.

Proceed.

DAI: May I say something about the religion?

HELMS: Oh, I see, all right.

I'm going to ask this question to you and Mr. Becker at the same time: What do you think of the view -- and I would appreciate your comment, as a matter of fact -- of the view that the presence of American businesses in China will expose the Chinese leadership to the American concepts of openness and transparency and respect for workers and steadily spread those concepts throughout the Chinese society?

I guess I'm asking: Do you agree with that statement...

BECKER: Absolutely not, Mr. Chairman.

HELMS: ... and if you do not, say why?

BECKER: Businesses never advance those thoughts. Those thoughts have been advanced through law in the United States and regulation. We've had to fight like hell for all of the rights that we have in labor in the United States.

You track business when it goes to other countries and see how they act. They go to the lowest common denominator.

State-of-the-art plants in the United States, where we have the best of conditions, the best safety conditions that you can have, when those same companies build down in the maquilladores in Mexico, they revert back to what the Mexican standards are. They don't carry their standards down there.

Put another way, Mr. Chairman, they are not going to China or to Indonesia, or they won't go to Vietnam, in order to increase the environmental controls in that country or to try to raise the cost of labor in those countries.

BECKER: They are going there to take advantage of the lowest prices they can possibly get. That's the creed of management, and it's offset in the United States by the regulation and law that we have in this country.

HELMS: Do you agree with that, ma'am?

DAI: First, I want to say something about religion. May I?

HELMS: Yes.

DAI: In China, the government hate organized persons, because it wants to control the whole society directly. So not only the religion, you know, but Falun Gong and another, you know, even environment NGOs, the government really doesn't like. So he try to destroy every organized person.

This is because the legitimacy, you know, is not, you know, vote for power but, you know, arms for power. So not only the religion.

And now, you know, the whole social becomes stronger and stronger. You know some case that you know the people, the religious people to be surprised. But you don't mention such.

You know, even me, when I lived in Beijing, I have so many friends. They go to church. And they got so many things. Even, you see, in some families, they want to have a maid in the work, clean house and work in family. If the girl, you know, goes to church, and then -- perfect, perfect. So it's so common in Beijing and other cities...

HELMS: Let them respond to you.

DAI: Yes.

HELMS: OK.

Go ahead.

BAUER: Well, you know, China obviously is a very large country, and there's -- almost anything you say about it is true, someplace. There certainly is more religious liberty and more believers in China than there were 30 or 40 years ago, or 20 years ago.

But, Mr. Chairman, as you point out, and as your staff found, those that insist on worshiping by their own beliefs and preaching by their own beliefs without running those by the government, are horrendously oppressed in that process.

Some Chinese families have to baptize their children in rivers at night because they can't get permission to baptize them any other way.

Mr. Chairman, if I could just say one thing about your question. Whatever the presence of American companies accomplishes from a positive standpoint in China, I'm afraid the trade-offs in the other direction are much more severe.

Many American companies find that, in order to get the prize license or permissions to build a plant or to do business in China, they've got to become partners with the Chinese government in the control of the Chinese people. So a company that wants to build a factory in China might have to agree to allow the secret police to enter the factory to check whether anybody is reading Bibles during their lunch hour or whether a female employee might be pregnant with an unauthorized second child.

So the American corporations, in some cases, become partners in the oppression of the Chinese people.

HELMS: We'll address that a little bit later.

Do you agree with that?

BECKER: I would like to take a little different twist at that, if I possibly could...

HELMS: All right.

BECKER: ... rather than directly with the religion. We're not -- as a trade union movement in the United States, we're not against the Chinese people. But we've insisted...

HELMS: No, of course not.

BECKER: ... we've insisted that the trade agreements of the United States contain some basic human rights, environmental protections and trade union rights. Trade union rights often are the cornerstone of democracy. That's where the seed of democracy is sown amongst the workers. And it spreads from there.

Workers have to have the right to be able to share in the wealth they help create. If they are kept compressed, if they are kept pushed down to where they can't do that, to share in this, then this becomes a comparative advantage for China in their trade relations throughout the rest of the world.

And this is what we're talking about, because somehow or another, we have to compete with them in some form or fashion.

But my point really is, is that democracy, if it starts within the trade union movement, within the workers' movement, and it did all -- that's what collapsed communism in Eastern Europe, starting in Poland, and it spread throughout the rest of the Eastern European nations and finally into Russia. That is what will work in China if anything does.

And when you sow those seeds of democracy, that's also democracy for religious freedom and for women and all the other things, really, that we're talking about here today.

HELMS: Very good.

Let me see, on a basis of...

KERRY: Russ came first.

HELMS: So he was here first...

KERRY: I'm first in seniority.

HELMS: So you go first.

I'm not going to call on anybody. The first one that takes -- you decide.

KERRY: No, no, no. You came here first. Senator Feingold.

Senator Feingold came here first.

HELMS: Senator?

FEINGOLD: Well, let me...

(LAUGHTER)

KERRY: On second thought -- Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to take my full time, and I have to go to another meeting. So I apologize, but Russ said he believes deeply in the seniority system here.

(LAUGHTER)

(UNKNOWN): That's because he's getting to be here for a while.

FEINGOLD: Getting better all the time.

KERRY: Let me, if I can, just make a couple comments. First of all, let me welcome all of our witnesses.

KERRY: I particularly welcome Gary Bauer and George Becker, who represent very important and extraordinarily legitimate points of view on these issues.

It may surprise some to hear this, but I greatly enjoyed much of what Mr. Bauer was espousing in the course of this campaign. I thought he was one of the most articulate people in the entire race. And while we don't agree on everything -- and he and I have sat before previously and privately and talked about these things, and we need to find a way to meld the significant value component of what he's talking about with some of the things that, on both sides of the aisle, we try to do here.

BAUER: Thank you, Senator.

KERRY: And George, let me just say that I couldn't -- you know, I have such admiration for the position you're taking in terms of this important stand on human rights. And I think that Ms. Dai Qing agrees with you completely in terms of where you're trying to go. It's just a question of a different view about how we're going to get there in a sense.

I completely agree with your view about the impact, in the post- Communist Bloc world in Eastern Europe, of the trade unions. Obviously Lech Walesa and others were just prime examples of the way in which the trade union movement managed to change things. But it was there, and it was the organizing tool. It's not in China today. And so we are left, as Ms. Dai Qing is telling us, looking for other avenues, for other ways to promote this vital change.

Now I don't know if you've been to China. I mean, I guess I first went there the late '80s, and more recently have been there. What a dramatic change in just the years that I've been going there. It's not as long as people who are much more expert than me. But I've seen a place where few foreigners would engage with you, where few people would engage with foreigners, where you have to get permission to move off your street to go work somewhere, where there was such a complete and total lock on any kind of movement, freedom, choice of work, et cetera.

The place today where one of the great problems in China is the number of people who are spontaneously and willfully moving to the coastal communities to seek work where the work is, without any need for permission and so forth.

The fact is that many of the companies building -- many of the American, international companies building there are building to American standards in terms of the environment, in terms of working conditions, et cetera. Now are the salaries the same? No, they're not. Nor have they ever been the same in almost any country in the world. Nor were they the same between Massachusetts and Georgia and South Carolina when we lost the textile industry, the shoe and the leather industries because of labor costs and because of these transitions that take place.

The real question here is, even in the years where we had an annual review, which has been every year up until now, can anybody tell me that the annual review has produced the kind of change that we say we want to have in the long run here?

The issue, I think, is not who supports. You know, China is a dictatorship. It's authoritarian. We don't like it. We want it to be a democracy. We long for a change.

But the question before us is going to be, how best to achieve that? And I just -- I share with my colleagues, and I just want the committee to have this on the record.

This is what Ms. Dai Qing said. She said: "My parents fought for a new China, for a democratic system and against the corruption of the old order. But when the new China appeared, so did dictatorship, injustice and corruption. I feel very sorry for my mother and father and the party's first generation of idealists." Now she -- much of her writing is banned inside China today.

After the Tiananmen massacre, she was arrested and detained for 10 months. She's been an enormous critic of the Three Gorges Dam -- wrote this brilliant book about the dam. It's been banned inside China. Her parents were both executed during the occupation by Japan. Her father -- executed when she was 3 years old.

She grew up among the top elite as the adoptee of her father's friend, Marshal Yai Janging (ph). And she earned a degree in missile engineering. She's worked on China's program of intercontinental missiles. And after the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, she assumed the cover of a writer while she was spying in Europe for military intelligence.

KERRY: So she's been there, done that, understands the system.

And I don't think it's an accident that so many people like Dai and Harry Wu and others who are on the forefront of resistance, of change, of seeking a change are saying that opening up to standards and rules and being involved in a broader context, in their judgment, is going to bring about change. Now, for me, I think it's important to listen to those folks who are on that front line. None of us have all the answers here.

I think we could have negotiated a better agreement, and I've said that to my colleague Paul and others. And I hope in the future we're going to keep and find a way to put these other issues much more on the table. But for the moment, this is the one we have in front of us, and my sense is that we need to keep moving down this road.

So, Mr. Chairman, that's my statement. I appreciate -- you wanted to respond, George? I see you begging for the microphone.

BECKER: Please do. I know -- well, I know that you're anxious to leave or that you have to leave.

KERRY: I'm not anxious to leave; I have to leave.

BECKER: Well, you have to leave, but...

KERRY: I'm anxious to be part of this dialogue.

BECKER: And there is a couple of points.

I'm not saying, Senator, that the most favored nation that we had, the annual review, is one iota better than what we've got now. Fact is, they're both completely inadequate. When you say that we could have negotiated a better agreement, I don't how we could have negotiated a worse agreement.

This is the marketplace of the world. China is running a $70 billion deficit with the United States right now in trade. That's under the most favored nation. By the most conservative estimates, it's going to go -- it's going to skyrocket after PNTR comes into effect.

The question is -- they want our market, they want our trade, and the only thing we have to offer is our market. That was the time to do the bargaining. That was the time to get the environmental controls, the human rights controls and to get something for trade union rights for workers so that they can improve their lot in life. That was the time to get it.

Once we sign up with PNTR, we're out of the action.

KERRY: Well...

BECKER: And they can take our jobs, they can take our industry at any time that they want. We have -- we are defenseless in face of that.

KERRY: Mr. Chairman, I don't want to abuse the time.

First of all, let me just correct myself. I misspoke; I didn't mean Harry Wu, I meant Martin Lee.

But secondly, let me respond to what you just said. This agreement does nothing to alter one good or goods coming into the United States. There is no change in any tariff on any goods coming into this country. It is a one-way agreement. The only reduction in tariffs are reductions by the Chinese so that our goods can go into there.

Now it doesn't change the goods coming into this country. If you didn't pass this, they still have MFN, and given the record of the last 20 years, Congress is almost certain to pass it one more time here, and those goods and the trade deficit will continue to grow.

There's no evidence whatsoever that the Congress of the United States is prepared, particularly this year -- if it didn't do it after Tiananmen, what on Earth is the rationale for their doing today what they wouldn't do then, in terms of not granting MFN? So there's nothing that's going to change in that balance.

BECKER: The will of the Senate. The will of the Senate. You can stop it dead in its tracks. And you can tell them to renegotiate this agreement. You can tell them that we want the human rights and that we want the environmental controls and that we want trade union rights within that agreement, in the core agreement, or you don't get our market.

BECKER: It's as simple as that.

KERRY: But we need to find...

(CROSSTALK)

BECKER: But until we take that stand, we're not going to get it there.

KERRY: I very much respect your view on that. And we need to find a way to fight for those things.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

HELMS: You're quite welcome, Senator.

Now who?

FEINGOLD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to thank the chair for holding this hearing. I have never, just like the chairman, supported the idea that trade issues should be divorced from human rights and other concerns. It's my firm belief that a number of factors must be weighed in considering the nature of our trade relationships with other countries, and for that reason I think this is a very timely and valuable hearing. And I am concerned about the possibility that Congress will abandon its annual review of China's trade status.

And I did also enjoy Mr. Bauer's remarks and would like to ask him a question.

The supporters of PNTR claim that increased economic openness will, sort of, inextricably lead to increased civil and political openness, and China has been engaged in significant international trade for some time. Between the U.S. and China, trade has increased from $4.8 billion in 1980 to $94.9 billion in 1999. Has there been any indication, Mr. Bauer, that this relationship has led to increased political openness and toleration in China?

BAUER: Senator, very little. In fact, if you look at our own State Department reports, in an administration that's been very sympathetic to more trade with China, those reports indicate that if anything, things have worsened in the last five to eight years on almost every measurement that we can point to.

I think it was just two years ago that the State Department came out with an incredible statement that they could not identify one active dissident in China in a nation of -- what? -- 1.4 billion people. I mean, we almost have a dissident by accident with that many people.

No, I think the evidence is quite the opposite. And quite frankly, historically it just isn't true that more open economic activity will lead to more political freedom. In fact, the most dramatic example of the opposite is Nazi Germany. There was a great rebirth of economic activity when the Nazis took power, but the exact opposite happened on political liberty. Political liberty was being withdrawn.

So there's nothing foreordained about this, nothing certain about it. And I think that the only reason that the increased economic activity would lead to more political liberty, is if a price of that economic activity is pressure from a democracy like the United States on these sorts of human rights and national security issues. And it seems to me, by giving them permanent NTR, we're taking away that pressure at the very time we ought to be increasing it.

FEINGOLD: Thank you for that answer.

And Ms. Qing, I certainly admire you and I'm curious, do you think -- just how seriously do you think that the regime in Beijing takes this annual congressional debate on China's trade status? And would the level of attention or concern or recognition of it change if we didn't have these annual discussions and votes?

DAI: Yes. Something -- you know, I think it's terrible, Chinese tradition that, you know, save the face. It's very, very important for not only the ordinary Chinese, but especially the Chinese leaders.

So when you try to criticize it something and then think it intend to do it against you, but if you, you know, just like if you let go, and then it's gone. So I just want to give an example about the -- you know, in China, we have a really terrible thing.

DAI: This is the government-issued -- the force in this state (ph). In this state, the Communist Party's leadership; in this state, the socialist political system; in this state, the proletarian dictatorship exists as the Marxism and the Leninism as a theory -- as the leading theory. So it's terrible. But if you -- if you American or other country, you know, very strong, criticize it, it will resist it (ph).

But, you know, 11 years ago, the communist leaders themselves tried to move the force in this district from the norm -- the national constitution from the party's regulation. So you speak some, some improved, some progress itself.

So I think the every year -- the annual criticize and your attack is very good for us, for the political prisoner or political, you know, dissidents, this kind of person. I myself -- I get benefit from your strong criticize or even negotiations -- human rights negotiations about that.

But it speak very -- I think very little for the whole society. The ordinary people...

FEINGOLD: Are you saying, ma'am, that it would be better if this committee and senators did not criticize the human rights record of China?

DAI: No. I don't mean, not criticize. You criticize and we really feel warm. But for the ordinary people, for the people, they are not, you know, trial by the police -- not, you know, tap the telephone 24 hours. The ordinary people, they just hope that the whole social change bit by bit, bit by bit. And they just want to earn money. They just want to have their reward.

So I think is good for political dissidents, but will do very little for the whole society, only, you know, annual check and criticize.

FEINGOLD: Mr. Becker, are you aware of any cases in which U.S. investment has led to real improvements in labor conditions in China? And what impact do you think further U.S. investment in China will have on labor conditions and labor activism in China?

BECKER: I would like to lead into that by commenting on...

FEINGOLD: Feel free. Feel free.

BECKER: ... what was said just a second ago about this harsh criticism.

First of all, what makes anybody believe that China is going to live up to the accession agreement, either in spirit or in the letter of the law, when they haven't enforced any of the other agreements? And what makes us believe that we're going to be able to stand up to that kind of anger from the Chinese?

If we criticize them, or if we try to force them to live up to that, we know we're going to get the same kind of response that we got on other areas that we've criticized the Chinese. It's going to be the anger and the threats, and I don't believe that anybody else believes that our politicians and our companies are going to be able to stand up against that.

This is why -- this is why agreements up to this point in time have not been enforced against the Chinese.

But to get to the other aspect of this, as far as companies going into China, the companies go into China, they build there and they export back to the United States. Sure there's wealth created in China. And it may be -- I don't know at what levels it would be distributed.

But the workers themselves do not have the freedom to share in this. They don't have the right to make demands like they do in the United States and be able to share in the wealth and the prosperity that they help create.

And any kind of concerted activity on their part to do this is met very harshly by the government. This is why the slave labor camps are filled in China, and we know that. And the military runs those.

And we see -- they just announced today, I think, Ford is going to build a factory in China. I mean, this is a trade agreement, no? This is not trade back and forth. And that's what this agreement protects. It protects the companies and the financial institutions. I meant -- I should have said that to Senator Kerry.

There is some meat to this, but the meat to it is to protect the companies and the finance arrangements going over there. It's not a trade agreement back and forth. There's no way that we can compete against Chinese goods coming into the United States made under the conditions that they're currently made.

We have to break that mold. And to us, the only way to break that mold is to put guts into the trade agreements themselves. And that touches, then, on the human rights and the environmental regulations and the trade union rights.

FEINGOLD: Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HELMS: If you will, spare me a couple of minutes here.

I think one thing needs to be made clear. Before I came to the Senate in 1973, I had an interest in young people, including a great many Chinese young people who were studying in this country or otherwise here.

After I came to the Senate -- are you keeping up with me? -- after I came to the Senate, I must have worked with 300 -- more than 300 young Chinese people whom I loved dearly. Now this is not -- those of us who oppose this arrangement with China, we are not worried about the people of China; we are worried about the dictators who run China and who won't let the people have freedom to do and say what they need to do.

In other words, we want the people to be free, and we don't think this is going to help, because heretofore -- and in just a few minutes, I'm going to talk about this chart that I had the folks draw up about the trade agreements between the United States and China, a record of broken promises, not by the people of China, no -- by the government of China, the rulers of China.

So I just wanted to make that point.

And thank you, Paul.

WELLSTONE: Yes. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.

To the panelists, thank you.

And, Gary, I agree with what my other colleagues have said about you...

BAUER: Thank you.

WELLSTONE: ... and your important voice in our country.

WELLSTONE: Mr. Chairman, we're going to have apparently another round to ask some questions -- apology. I want to make a very brief statement, because it's important for me to explain my position as a senator, especially given the fine testimony of Dai Qing.

This is a really important hearing, and we're dealing with issues of labor and trade and human rights and religious freedom. And, Mr. Chairman, I don't think it's just important for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I don't think it's just important for the Senate itself, I think these are issues that are important and should be discussed in the kitchens and living rooms of people around the country.

My father, who was born in Ukraine and lived in Russia and lived in Harbin and lived in Peking and spoke fluent Chinese, would be the first to say that when the most basic human rights and freedoms of others are infringed or endangered, we are diminished by our failure to speak out or to act on our beliefs, but when we embrace the cause of human rights, we reaffirm one of the greatest traditions of American democracy.

Mr. Becker, you know, I think people are realizing in our country that we can't separate how well we do as citizens, how well we do as workers, from the plight of workers in other countries around the world, and you have been a towering figure in the labor movement, and I thank you for your very, very strong voice.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say this to Dai Qing, especially. The issue before us is not whether or not we have trade with China. We have trade with China. It's not about whether we have an embargo. We're not going to have an embargo. We're not even discussing whether China should enter the WTO. This has all gotten kind of confused.

The question for the Senate is whether or not we do or do not reserve for ourselves the right to annually review trade relations with China. And I think that, in turn, becomes the question not of whether China's going to be part of the world economy; it's a huge country, it will be. The question is, Under what terms does China become a part of the world economy? What will the rules be? Who will decide those rules? Who will benefit, and who will be harmed by them?

And I don't think, Mr. Becker or any of you here, for you to say that in this new global economy, you want to make sure that the global economy works also for human rights and the environment and wage earners and producers, that's forward-looking; that's not backward- looking.

This bilateral agreement, Mr. Chairman, that was negotiated by the United States and China last November and the PNTR legislation currently before the Senate provides discouraging answers to the questions that I just raised.

Our bilateral agreement -- anyone can examine this -- contains page after page after page of protections for United States investors. It is a virtual wish list for multinational corporations operating in China and for those who want to move there. But it contains not one word about human rights, Gary, not one word about religious freedom, nothing on labor rights, and nothing on the environment.

Now it's been said that the United States could not have demanded such things, Mr. Chairman, because we concede nothing in our deal with China. This is far from the truth. With PNTR, the United States would give up annual review of China's MFN trading privileges as well -- as well as our bilateral trade remedies.

I think we could have negotiated a different deal with China, one that would have better reflected the priorities of the American people. And I think the reason we could have done that is that China absorbs 40 percent -- we absorb, the United States absorbs 40 percent of China's exports.

So here's my question. Last year, the State Department report on human rights violations was brutal. We -- yet in our agreement with China, we extracted no concessions with regard to human rights, nor did we obtain any concessions with regard to religious freedom.

Yet the report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, commissioned by our Senate and our House of Representatives, recommends that we delay PNTR until China makes substantial improvement in allowing its people the freedom to worship, and they lay out a number of different benchmarks that should be met.

We demanded no concessions from China on their persecution of labor organizers, yet any effort to form an independent labor union in China is met with firing, arrests -- this is true -- and imprisonment without trial, usually for three to eight years in a labor camp.

WELLSTONE: And we obtained no concessions from the Chinese on complying with their existing commitments on forceable prison labor.

Mr. President, (sic) I don't know if this really so much about, we're going to have more exports to China. I think what we're going to have on present course is, we're going to have more investments. And what we're going to see instead is that China is going to become an export platform attracting foreign manufacturers, paying wages as low as 3 cents an hour. Wal-Mart's over there right now paying 13 cents an hour, or 14 cents an hour.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to ask unanimous consent that my full statement be included in the record.

HELMS: Without objection, of course.

WELLSTONE: And I'd like to conclude this way, to stay within my time limit. I think we need a more forward-looking approach to the challenges of this global economy. I refuse to be called a protectionist. I refuse to be labeled as looking backward or being retrograde. I'm looking forward. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with people in our country, and, for that matter, people throughout the world, saying we're in a new global economy.

Just as 100 years ago, we evolved into a national economy, and we wanted to make sure it worked for people, we want to make sure of this global economy. We're being told that we live in a global economy, and that's true. But the implications of living in a global economy, I think, are seldom recognized.

To me, Mr. Chairman, if we're living in a global economy and we care about human rights, then we can no longer concern ourselves just with human rights at home. If we live in a global economy, we're concerned about human rights throughout the world.

If we truly care about religious freedom, we can no longer just be concerned about religious freedom at home. We've just been told we live in a global economy. We care about religious freedom in other nations.

If we truly care about the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, and earn a decent living for themselves and their family, then we can no longer just be concerned about labor rights at home.

And if we truly care about the environment, we can no longer concern ourselves just with environmental protections at home; we have to concern ourselves with environmental protections around the country.

It's interesting, and it's -- 20 more seconds. If you look at the polling data, the American people, by a fairly large margin, want us to maintain our rights to review trade relations -- normal trade relations with China. And 83 percent of the people in our country support inclusion of strong environmental and labor and human rights standards in trade agreements.

But you know what? I don't think they've really been consulted in this debate. And that's why this hearing is so important. And I just wanted to be clear about what my position is as a senator.

And on the floor of the Senate, I'm committed -- and I know you are -- we're going to have amendments on human rights, we're going to have amendments on the right of people to practice their religion. I'm going to have an amendment on the right of workers to organize in our own country -- labor law reform. And we're going to have amendments that deal with environmental protection, and we should. And I say that out of hope for China.

I'm not a China basher. I don't want to have a cold war. That's not what I'm about. But I do freely strongly about these issues.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HELMS: Well, you've listened quietly, Gary. Before we get to another line of questioning, do you have any comments you want to offer?

BAUER: Well, just to say to Senator Wellstone, that -- eloquent and passionate as always, Senator. It's great to be on the same side with you on this issue.

You know, I think that the question needs to be asked...

(CROSSTALK)

HELMS: Would you pardon me, just a minute?

I've had printed -- the young people who are visitors here, who cannot see this chart here -- I've had copies made of the text of that, and if you would like one, it's a major U.S.-China trade agreement, a record of broken promises. Have you passed them out?

STAFF: We passed them out, Senator.

HELMS: All right. OK.

You may proceed.

BAUER: Senator Wellstone, I think the question that needs to be asked of those on the other side of the debate is, Is there no amount of oppression, is there no amount of crackdown on religious liberty and on basic human rights that would change their view on normal trade relations with China?

Certainly, I believe that everybody in this debate has good motives and are hoping to accomplish long-term the same thing. But can it be that, no matter what happened inside of China, there would be those here in Washington who would argue that it ought to be business as usual?

There are clearly more dissidents in the camps today than there was yesterday, and there will be more tomorrow than there is today. You can go down every way we measure a civilized nation, and the last 10 years the measurements have gotten worse. What is it that Beijing would have to do that would lead our opposition in this debate to say, You know what? I think you're right. I think we need to slow down a little bit here, and perhaps use this incredible ace-in-the-hole that we have, which is the American marketplace.

BAUER: The Chinese government desperately needs this marketplace. They can't duplicate it anyplace else in the world.

What would it take for our opponents to say, "You're right, we ought to use this wonderful ace-in-the-hole in order to get changes in China"?

I presume there would be something that would lead them to say, this is too much for even them to swallow. I think we passed that line a long time ago.

One final point: as you all know, Senator, at least a third, perhaps half of the trade we do with China, is not with the people of China but it's with companies controlled by the People's Liberation Army. So you're not trading with the guy standing in front of the tank, you're trading with the guy that was driving the tank.

America has always stood with the people standing in front of those tanks, not with the guys driving them. It's a matter of great shame I think that right now we seem to be siding with the driver of those tanks.

HELMS: Mr. Becker, do you have anything...

BECKER: Just a -- just a very brief comment on that. I don't think anybody's in disagreement at all about the need for human rights for the people of China. The question really is how do we help bring that about? What can we do to help advance that?

We had an excellent opportunity in negotiating this treaty agreement, something that they're vitally interested in and something they have to have to advance their society at all. And we've thrown that away under the PNTR.

I would like to point to this exercise that we have here that they can't have in China: a hearing like this that we can debate the issues that are important. The fact that we can sit here, the three of us here that have different view points and have the freedom to be able to express them before this assembly. And I think that's really what that's about.

And I think that you carry a terrible weight -- the Senate. This has passed the House and the last stop is in your hands to be able to hold that back. And if it doesn't pass the Senate, it's going to be renegotiated. It's going to give our leaders an opportunity to take another look at this. And we're going to work like hell to make sure that they take the right look.

And I want to thank you very much for this.

HELMS: Now, let me say to you, lady, and this is not a wind-up because he's got his questions yet.

I've been the chairman of this committee for quite a long time. And I don't recall a more dynamic, interesting witness before since I've been chairman.

WELLSTONE: And I haven't been chairman of this committee a long time...

(LAUGHTER)

... but I agree with him.

HELMS: Well, good.

Go ahead.

DAI: I have a question to ask you. You know, all the political dissidents or some person independent from the government politically in China, you know, we have the same value as you have, we have the same concerns, you know, as you have, and we have abuse -- human rights abuse from the government. But, why, you know, all the dissidents -- I cannot say all, but most of the dissidents in China -- live in China, they support PNTR.

This is because, you know, we know, you know, all the things they mentioned -- most of the things they mentioned it really happened, but the policy, you know, the policy the government issued has a very little change, but the whole society changes every day, every minute.

And you know, there is an ancient story that, you know, the wind and the sun try to race -- who can, you know, put some person's jacket off. So the wind blow, blow and blow. And then the person, you know, gets the clothes, you know, closely. But the sun just, you know, just give the warm and the heat and then the person take it off. So the PNTR and very good relationship with the United States will just like the warm, just like the sunshine.

And then the whole society will change. And then it will force the policy-makers change their policy.

WELLSTONE: Do you want me to answer the question? Was that a question for me? Do you want me to answer it or rather not to?

HELMS: Let me proceed if I may.

I think I'm the only one in this room who remembers the prime minister of England -- Great Britain, who in the '30s -- 1930s, he had an idea of making peace with Germany and with Adolf Hitler. So Mr. Chamberlain went to Munich and he sat down with the chancellor of Germany. And he came back to London with a great display before the press. And they gave him big play in saying, peace in our time. And he said we are going to have peace in our time because he told me.

Well, you know the rest of that. He was wrong and thank the lord there was a guy named Winston Churchill who came along and said, we'll fight them in the streets, we'll fight them in the fields, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Now, I want you to describe for me, ma'am, the prison conditions that you experienced when you were arrested for expressing your beliefs.

HELMS: And I believe that was just a few years ago -- 1989, wasn't it? What were the conditions of the prison in which you were held?

(CROSSTALK)

HELMS: You understand?

DAI: Yes.

HELMS: OK.

DAI: You know, depends on the Chinese law. The police only can detain people for 24 hours. If no enough evidence, you know, collected, and then let the person go.

But my condition is the police detained me, no trial, no prosecute. And that's just detain me for 10 months. And the 10 months and no evidence collected and let me go.

So this is -- but, you know, the prison they detained me is very famous in China. This is (inaudible) help the Chinese government to build this amount industry, you know, some support, is the political prison, only detain some political prisoner.

HELMS: Do you believe -- and I ask this respectfully -- do you really believe that the United States can have a normal relations with a nation whose government locks up people like you, that charges folks disseminating information on a democracy by way of the Internet, charge them with crimes against the state; a country or regime, as in your -- China that insists upon puppets in as religious leaders in Tibet -- and I must confess that I'm good friend of the Dalai Lama -- and eliminates the legitimate leaders of Tibet; and a regime that exports goods made in a system of forced labor camps, all of which your government does?

Now, this is not an indictment of the Chinese people. That's what you want to overthrow and change and get a democracy and you want a constitution sort of like the United States and maybe other countries have and so forth.

But I don't understand, Paul -- we can be informal here...

WELLSTONE: Yes.

HELMS: ... but I don't understand these big -- leaders of big business, many of whom are friends of mine, who have contacted me and with almost excessive force demanded that I go along with this thing, and I can't do it. I am their friend, I have been their friend, but I disagree with them and I shall not support this, because I don't think it's good for my country and I don't think it's good for your people. And that's the up and downs of it.

But in any case, Neville Chamberlain was beguiled by Adolf Hitler -- I don't see how, but he didn't bring peace in our time. It was the lives of American boys and French and various others, British, who gave their lives to make peace in our time.

You may go.

WELLSTONE: Well, I don't think it's so much a question. I mean, I thank the panelists. I wanted to respond to Dai Qing's question to me, and I thank all of you.

I wanted to say to you, Dai Qing, that your question was, you know, if you feel so strongly about this why is it that those of us in China, like me, who lived this -- and it's a very fair question -- have a different position? And I wanted to say a couple of things.

Again, I want to make this point, because I think it's become -- I don't know that this is the reason, but I want to say this, that I think, at least in our country, there's been some confusion. At one point even in your testimony you said, Look, I wouldn't mind if China's record was reviewed every day, it's not so much the review I'm opposed to.

I think some people think that those of us who say that we ought to maintain what little leverage we have are saying that we don't want to have trade, and we're not; or saying that we want to have an embargo, and we don't; or saying that we want to isolate China, and we don't; or saying that we want to bash China, and I don't.

So I don't -- first of all, I think sometimes that the two things get confused.

My second point, which is -- I mean to say this out of respect -- is I will admit -- I want to say to you that there are also people -- Harry Wu's name was mentioned, I was going to, you know, Senator Kerry corrected himself.

WELLSTONE: I was going to say Harry Wu is very strongly in favor of at least trying to have some of these amendments and conditions attached to our -- to this agreement, and he thinks we ought to annually review it. Wei Jingsheng is someone whom I've come to love. I mean, Wei Jingsheng is -- you and Wei Jingsheng are part of the same -- I mean, I have such admiration for both of you. I mean, Wei spent -- how many years? -- 12 years, 14 years in prison for his writing.

DAI: Seventeen.

WELLSTONE: And I want to say to you, because I don't want you to think that what I say is just abstract or overly intellectual, I've spent so much time with Wei, you know, I consider him to be a close friend. And I'm moved by what he says.

And in our country, a lot of people like Wei, who have the freedom to speak out, they say, Don't give up annual review; at least make it clear to government that you care about these issues still. Especially given the fact -- we've had 20 years of more and more economic activity, more and more trade, more and more United States companies going to China and lots has changed. Senator Kerry said that, I agree.

But you know what hasn't changed? The human rights record has not gotten any better. According to our own reports. And our own commission on religious persecution, chaired by, I think Rabbi Saperstein, said, We have looked at the whole question of whether or not people practice their religion, and we believe -- our recommendation to the Senate, is don't give up your right of annual review. So I want you to know that my position is a -- it is a thoughtful position and one that I also feel strongly about.

HELMS: That's your final answer?

BAUER: I would just say -- add one thing, Senator Wellstone, you probably have heard Wei talk about the fact that when he was in prison, and most favored nation status would come up here in the United States Congress, the prison authorities would come to Wei's cell and they would offer him anything that he wanted if he would sign a statement in favor of most favored nation status currently being -- at that time -- debated in the United States.

If there is a sizable body of opinion among Chinese dissidents against NP -- normal permanent trade relations, in all due respect to Dai Qing, I just don't think we would be hearing about it. I don't think we're going to hear their views unless they're in the United States free to speak.

And as you've pointed out, Senator Wellstone, many of those that are in the United States free to speak, in fact, have taken the position that you and Senator Helms have on the issue.

HELMS: Yes, sir?

BECKER: If I could, just a real small point on that.

I believe that the annual review of the most favored nation status has become a terrible embarrassment for the United States. The State Department runs this -- compiles this on an annual basis before this goes before the Congress to be debated and approved on it -- continuance on an annual basis. I think it's become extremely difficult for the administration to pretend that there is -- that everything is getting better in China when there record shows it's wrong. I think it's an embarrassment. I think that's what they want to get behind them. I just want to put that out.

Incidentally, I wanted Senator Kerry to know, I didn't tell him this: I have been to China myself.

HELMS: I'll tell him.

BECKER: Pardon?

HELMS: I said, I'll tell him.

BECKER: Thank you.

HELMS: Well...

DAI: Yes.

HELMS: ... last but not least.

DAI: Yes. I think Wei Jingsheng and other dissidents in this country, and maybe including you, and you are so urgent, so impatient for the change in China. But, you know, this is because you have so strong expectation have a better China.

But, you know, we should -- we should have been very, very patient, because, you know, you -- I, every day -- almost every day I feel so angry in my home because police, the police -- just a few days ago, the police stopped me when I tried to visit my friends, Bao Tung (ph), you have known, Bao Tung (ph). And then the police stopped me and detained me three hours in the office. I'm so angry.

But I know we must be very patient, because China not European country. You know, European country, they -- in 19 -- before -- you know, in the 1920s and '30s they enjoyed democratic system, so they just have a, you know, duration of communist ruling. But in China we have 2000 of years these kind of things, dictatorship, and the communists only use the communism as the, you know, the name. You have the same type of ruling.

So you, you know -- of course I, you know, maybe one day something change immediately, I'm very happy and I have my basic right I can publish, but I hate another revolution. We have to, you know, to nurture the whole social change bit by bit.

And I really hope that you American politician will not only see the communist leader, you know -- they did -- of course they did lots of very, very bad things, but they are not the same as Mao Zedong.

And, you know, the dictatorship in one country have two aspect. One that is the emperor itself. Another one is the, you know, all the people so loyalty, so worship to the emperor. But in Mao Zedong era we are the loyal people, but right now the Chinese people, no one think Jiang Zemin, even he has the same position as Mao Zedong, but no one thing Jiang Zemin is a god in their heart, just don't want to worship him just like we worship Mao Zedong. So the social change.

HELMS: Thank you very much.

And if there be no further business to come before the committee we stand in recess. Thank you very much, all three of you -- all four of you. Stand in recess.

END

NOTES:
Unknown - Indicates speaker unknown.
Inaudible - Could not make out what was being said.
off mike - Indicates could not make out what was being said.

PERSON: JESSE HELMS (94%); RICHARD G LUGAR (57%); CRAIG THOMAS (55%); JOHN DAVID ASHCROFT (55%); JOSEPH R BIDEN (54%); LINCOLN D CHAFEE (54%); JOHN F KERRY (53%); PAUL S SARBANES (53%); PAUL DAVID (52%); BARBARA BOXER (52%); ROBERT G TORRICELLI (51%);

LOAD-DATE: July 20, 2000

Document 23 of 374.


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