China, The United States,and Human Rights
Levinson, Mark
In his 1997 inauguration speech President Bill Clinton said: "Our hopes, our hearts, our hands are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their cause is America's...
...When Deng's successors speak similar words as they stamp out dissent, can anyone say they are wrong...
...The despots who rule the world's most populous nation have found, in the Clinton administration and the American business community, powerful allies in their effort to suppress human rights...
...The economic reason to link trade and labor rights is 10 • DISSENT Human Rights and China to make it possible for workers in countries like China to raise their living standards...
...policy should be concerned with pursuing our economic interest...
...Linking trade to worker rights does not prevent a country from using low wages to initiate development...
...Suppose, for the sake of argument, we accept that the proper stance toward China is "constructive engagement...
...Their cause is America's cause...
...an intense crackdown is underway against all forms of unauthorized religious belief and worship...
...jobs but access to China's vast supply of cheap labor...
...But listen to Deng Xiaoping, who ten years ago boasted, "We put Wei Jingsheng* behind bars, didn't we...
...The United States's interest in China surely goes beyond creating a safe haven for investment...
...What determines whether the policy is working...
...The question is: how is that interest defined...
...Does anyone believe that China's human rights record has improved in the last several years...
...China's massive involvement in the global economy makes it very much an external affair...
...Even a partial loss of access to the American market would be a serious blow to Chinese economic expansion...
...12 • DISSENT...
...and the numbers of judicial executions in China are now greater than at any time since 1983...
...The conventional view is that trade automatically benefits all...
...repression of nationalist and ethnic minority movements is the most severe in years...
...Has some measure of democratic rights really been won...
...The moral reason is to limit the exploitation of workers...
...exports to China amount to a mere 2 percent of overall American exports...
...This isn't necessarily a bad thing: U.S...
...It is using economic pressure against those who criticize its human rights practices...
...Are dissidents, even those within SPRING • 1997 • 11 Human Rights and China the ruling party, allowed to speak...
...When the German Bundestag adopted a resolution critical of China's policies in Tibet, Beijing canceled a visit by foreign minister Klaus Kinkel and threatened to take its business elsewhere...
...If our goal is a democratic and prosperous China, then our trade policy should make it possible for workers to receive a rising share of the benefits of increased productivity and economic expansion...
...It may be comforting to believe that political freedom will inevitably follow from economic growth, that American companies are doing their part for liberalization just by being there...
...Workers must be able to organize and bargain to improve their conditions on terms compatible with their countries' stage of economic development...
...We should be uncomfortable when multinational corporations profit from using impoverished workers who, because they lack basic rights, are unable to fight for better working conditions...
...These exports—air conditioners, auto parts, toys, textiles and apparel, electrical machinery, shoes—are highly profitable for the companies but they undercut the bargaining power of labor in the U.S...
...investment in China climbed from $358 million in 1990 to $25 billion in 1996...
...This benefits developing countries as well as spurring exports from developed countries...
...The real business interest in China is not protection of U.S...
...This resulting increase in consumption in developing countries helps to create a domestic market...
...by what the administration considers our economic interest in China...
...However, U.S...
...Precisely because the United States is China's largest overseas market—we import more than one-third of China's exports—we have leverage over China...
...The conditions under which many products are made in the developing world are abominable...
...The Clinton administration and its business supporters stress the number of American jobs created by trade with China...
...What accounts for the Clinton administration's appeasement of China...
...Is it because the administration fears the economic consequences of angering China's oligarchy, which considers human rights an internal affair...
...When China was purchasing airplanes it used competition between a European company, Airbus, and America's Boeing as a means of silencing both European and American critics...
...Part of a strategy to accomplish that is to link trade to worker rights...
...Despite what Albright has said, our relations with China are defined (held hostage...
...And it is not uncommon for American corporations to extract concessions from American workers by threatening to move factories overseas and employ workers whose rights are systematically violated...
...Do independent trade unions exist...
...Is it based on a belief that our relations with China should not, as Madeleine Albright recently said, be held "hostage to one issue, whether it be human rights or trade...
...The time has come to recognize internationally what the Great Depression forced America to realize nationally: advancing workers' living standards is critical to boosting their purchasing power and to achieving sustainable growth...
...That, unfortunately, is not true...
...In 1994 he was jailed again after meeting with an American human rights official...
...The idea that worker rights within China is an internal affair cannot be taken seriously...
...Wei Jingsheng served a fifteen-year jail sentence for calling for more democracy in 1978...
...According to Human Rights Watch Asia: China's small but formerly vibrant dissident community has been all but crushed...
...and frequently take away jobs...
...Did that damage China's reputation...
...Most of the goods made with cheap Chinese labor are exported back to the United States...
...In renouncing economic pressure as a means of influencing China, the Clinton administration is renouncing the use of any sort of external leverage at all...
...By these criteria Clinton's policy is a dismal failure...
...The opposite is increasingly true...
...Is it the influence of "experts," who all seem to stress the importance of "constructive engagement" with China (by which they seem to mean that we should maximize our involvement with China and express our concerns about human rights there, but never back them up with sanctions...
...We haven't released him, but China's image has not been tarnished...
...However, it does prevent countries from gaining competitive advantage by suppressing wages and violating basic labor rights...
...What makes the Clinton administration's policy even more inexplicable is that China is doing exactly what the Clinton administration refuses to do...
...There are both moral and economic reasons for linking trade and labor rights...
...Do workers have the right to strike...
Vol. 44 • April 1997 • No. 2
