Copyright 2000 Denver Publishing Company
DENVER
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
September 21, 2000, Thursday
SECTION: Local; Ed. Final; Pg. 34A
LENGTH: 731 words
HEADLINE:
U.S. POLICIES ON CHINA, CUBA A DOUBLE STANDARD
BYLINE:
Holger Jensen
BODY:
The granting of
permanent normal trade relations to China while maintaining the
39-year-old embargo of Cuba underscores once again the curious ambiguity of
American foreign policy.
Both are governed by communist regimes with
unsavory human rights records. And both U.S. approaches are designed to change
that behavior.
"We will find, I believe, that America has far more
influence in China with an outstretched hand than with a clenched fist," said
President Clinton after the Senate voted 83-15 for PNTR. "The more China opens
its markets to our products, the wider it opens its doors to economic freedom
and the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people."
One
must then ask: If economic engagement will work with China - which not only has
far more political prisoners than Cuba but also persecutes Christians, Tibetan
Buddhists, Muslim Uighurs and members of the Falun Gong - why will it not work
with an impoverished Caribbean island that desperately needs American rice and
NAPA auto parts?
The answer, of course, is money.
China
represents a market of 1.3 billion consumers and expected outlays of
$750 billion or more on infrastructure. It needs everything
from roads to telephones and plumbing, things American companies excel at
providing. In the words of Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, "it's like building a Boston airport every two months. It's
huge."
Cuba represents a market of 11 million consumers who can, at
most, maybe buy $400 million worth of American goods over the
next five years, and then only with U.S. credit guarantees. Without credit the
amount could be as low as $80 million.
Some lawmakers,
clearly uncomfortable with the double standard, are pressing to end the Cuban
embargo, but not too hard. This being an election year, they see no point - not
for that kind of money anyway - in antagonizing the hard-line Cuban-American
exiles of Miami, still seen as crucial to the Florida vote.
The
lucrative potential of China trade, however, was deemed worth the price of
antagonizing organized labor, a key Democratic constituency. Trade unions had
opposed PNTR, claiming it will cost 872,000 American jobs, 150,000 of them in
the textile industry.
But senators, like the congressmen who approved
the trade bill in May, were swayed by the arguments of big business, which
expects a $13 billion boost in annual U.S. exports to China -
$2 billion of it in the farm sector alone. This, said Sen. Max
Baucus, D-Mont., "is going to have a very direct effect on the quality of life
in America."
On paper, at least, he's right. Once China joins the World
Trade Organization - expected later this year or early next year - it is
committed to slashing tariffs on U.S. manufactured goods and farm products. It
must also open its financial and service industries to American companies, allow
greater outside ownership of telecommunications and give Americans full
distribution rights within the country.
Jobs will be gained and jobs
will be lost, particularly if American manufacturing plants move to China to
take advantage of low wages there. But more jobs will be lost in China. Some
studies suggest as many as 14 million Chinese could be thrown out of work if
Beijing, facing more foreign competition, leans down or shuts down its huge,
inefficient state-owned businesses.
Our $68.7 billion
trade deficit with China will go up, rather than down. The International Trade
Commission predicts that while U.S. exports to China will rise by 10 percent,
imports from China also will increase by 7 percent. Since the Chinese sell us
$81.8 billion worth of goods compared with the
$13.1 billion we sell them, the gap will widen.
Lastly,
critics are correct in pointing out that 20 years of more or less normal trade
with China - albeit with higher tariffs - did not improve human rights there.
Just the opposite in fact, according to our State Department. Nor has the Cuban
embargo improved Fidel Castro's behavior.
Change in both countries is
more likely to result from internal pressures than anything we tell them to do.
And, as the Chinese have learned in their dealings with Americans, markets
always triumph over morals.
This, of course, doesn't help the poor Cuban
seeking a carburetor for his pre-revolutionary Chevy.
NOTES:
Foreign Affairs
Holger
Jensen is international editor. E-mail: hjens@aol.com. His column also appears
on the Internet at www. rockymountainnews.com / jensen /
LOAD-DATE: September 22, 2000
