"As long as the Chinese leadership steadfastly refuses to abide by the universal norms of human rights protection, the United States should not grant normal trade relations on a permanent basis. Instead, we should retain the valuable option provided by annual review of China's compliance with fundamental norms...a decision now to forgo on a permanent basis the annual review and debate on these issues could be seen as an abandonment of U.S. concern for religious liberty and human rights."

—Bernard Cardinal Law, archbishop of Boston and chairman of the U.S. Catholic Conference Committee on International Policy

"I voiced my opinion that China ought to protect workers' rights, people ought to have human rights....For that, I spent 18 years in prison and was very nearly executed. If you give China permanent trade status and don't talk about it once a year, and evaluate how they treat the Chinese people, they'll feel they can do whatever they want, however they want. This will be incredibly detrimental to human rights in China."

—Wei Jingsheng, Chinese dissident and human rights activist

"China—which has not yet ratified the two United Nations covenants on human rights it agreed to sign before President Clinton's trip to China in 1998—has broken every trade agreement it has signed with the United States over the past 10 years. Chinese government officials already are saying they have no intention of complying with the agreement they signed with the U.S. only three months ago. And China is one of the worst offenders of human rights in the world. It is a country that does not tolerate political dissent or free speech. China uses executions and torture to maintain order, persecutes religious minorities and violates workers' rights."

—John J. Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO

"Contrary to claims made by the National Association of Manufacturers, the notion that the benefits of U.S.-China trade are broadly shared is completely at odds with the facts...the benefits of U.S.-China trade are monopolized by U.S. multinational companies and many of the costs are incurred by small and medium-sized businesses. These companies often face direct competition for multinational contracts from Chinese suppliers. These Chinese companies have the advantage of no free unions to deal with, no occupational safety laws to implement and no environmental regulations to abide by, as well as a government in Beijing that regularly blackmails foreign investors into sourcing parts and materials from China."

—Kevin L. Kearns, president, U.S. Business and Industry Council

"...given the sharp deterioration in freedom of religion in China during the last year, the Commission believes that an unconditional grant of PNTR at this moment may be taken as a signal of American indifference to religious freedom."

—U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (appointed by Congress)

"The United States must retain the leverage afforded by annual review of our commercial relationship with China in order to ensure fair trade, clean trade and green trade. Congress should reject permanent NTR with China as the minimum step toward preserving its leverage in the fight for socially just and environmentally sustainable trade policies."

—Carl Pope, executive director, Sierra Club

"Despite the fact that Chinese leaders are abusing human rights, one of the most popular theories in politics today is that the best way to promote democracy and improve human rights in a communist country like China is to build up trade and investment. To me, this strategy is as realistic as convincing a tiger to become a vegetarian....Today, countries like Cuba, North Korea, Iraq and Burma face sanctions from the United States because of certain crimes—either arms sales or threats to neighboring democracies or massive human rights abuses. China commits all of these crimes and gets a free lunch from the United States."

—Harry Wu, executive director, Laogai Research Foundation, and former Chinese political prisoner

"By removing any leverage the U.S. might have with China through the trade debate, China would be much more free to continue its one-child forced abortion policy, religious persecution and military buildup. Given their appalling record on human rights and the fact that they are a threat to our national security, China should not be granted permanent Normal Trade Relations."

—Focus on the Family legislative alert

"China's record of offenses against faith, family and freedom have worsened with each annual Normal Trade Relations vote. The last thing the U.S. should do now is reward Beijing's wrongs with permanent, unqualified trading rights."

—Janet Parshall, Family Research Council