Policy Chairman Cox’s Legislation to Preserve Human Rights Focus Added to PNTR

    “Free trade with the Chinese people, and not with the Communist government, is the right policy,” he said. “But free trade alone is not enough. Today, in the classic bipartisan foreign policy tradition of Congress, we’ve done the right thing for the people of America, the right thing for the people of China, and the right thing for the cause of freedom—by ensuring we don’t throw out the human rights baby with the trade sanctions bathwater.”

    Since the Clinton-Gore administration first proposed its legislation to extend permanent normal trade relations to the Communist government in Beijing, Chairman Cox—a strong advocate for human rights and free trade—has focused on the proposal’s unnecessary elimination of Congressional review of human rights conditions in the People’s Republic of China. Under the latest China trade legislation, the Communist government will not escape continued Congressional human rights scrutiny.

    In addition to including the most important part of Chairman Cox’s legislation on human rights—a specific inventory of the rights Congress will examine in behalf of the Chinese people—the trade bill will increase U.S. funding for Radio Free Asia and call for the immediate accession of Taiwan to the WTO. Rep. Cox has been a long-time advocate of both measures.

    “The Clinton-Gore PNTR legislation would have bowed to the PRC’s desire not to have an annual, guaranteed discussion by Congress of its human rights performance,” Rep. Cox said. “I am happy to say that Congress is now fixing that flaw. As Governor Bush said last Wednesday, ‘Our advocacy of human freedom is not a formality of diplomacy, it is a fundamental commitment of our country.’ Today’s decision ensures that the PNTR legislation we will vote on, unlike the Clinton-Gore proposal, maintains that commitment to freedom.”