Newt in the China Shop
REES, MATTHEW
Newt in the China Shop by Matthew Rees HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH demanded an explanation when the story broke last month that a big Democratic donor, already under investigation for illegally...
...But it didn’t work...
...Matt Salmon, a Mandarin-speaking Arizona Republican who supports renewal of MFN, says the Clinton administration “deserves a D- or an F for its overall policy toward China...
...Like other Republican leaders, Gingrich was trying to balance his support for MFN with his concern about national security...
...This vacillation has left an opening for more junior Senate Republicans to pursue a confrontational China policy...
...Leading the effort has been Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas...
...Last month, when it looked as though a number of House-passed bills critical of China weren’t going anywhere in the Senate, it was Hutchinson who bucked Lott and introduced two of them as amendments to the defense authorization bill...
...The news about China and the Clinton administration continues to deepen the critics’ worst suspicions, and the Clinton administration’s continued lack of cooperation with Republican requests for information complicates Gingrich’s ability to support the administration on trade while berating it on national security...
...By rushing to embrace MFN, the speaker gave up his leverage with the president—and got nothing in return...
...Indeed, Gingrich’s letter to the president endorsing free trade with China— also signed by Ways and Means chairman Bill Archer and Ways and Means subcommittee chairman Phil Crane—was so supportive of MFN it could have been the work of a Clinton speechwriter...
...But in the current environment of skepticism toward China, Lott has been far from hawkish...
...There’s another problem...
...Spencer Abraham, John Ashcroft, and Jon Kyl are expected to offer further tough-on-China House legislation as amendments to the defense bill this week...
...Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...In the Senate, majority leader Trent Lott faces pressure from many of his fellow Republicans to crack down on China...
...Gingrich has also alienated social conservatives, led by Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, who called the speaker’s letter “extremely disappointing...
...On June 4, 85 Democrats joined 219 Republicans in urging Clinton not to visit Tiananmen Square—an idea proposed two weeks before in a Bauer-initiated letter signed by a bipartisan group of human-rights activists...
...The social conservatives would have liked Gingrich at least to withhold his endorsement for a couple of weeks or to make it conditional on cooperation from Beijing in the investigation into the Chinese military’s use of Johnny Chung as a conduit for contributions to the Democratic party...
...Sure enough, House members are stepping up their criticism of China...
...His aides have little to say on the matter, and it’s all the more mysterious in light of a recent ABC News poll showing that while Clinton has a 60 percent approval rating for foreign affairs, only 40 percent approve of his China policy...
...Against this backdrop, it was all the more surprising when Gingrich stepped forward on June 3 to become the first congressional Republican to endorse Clinton’s call for renewing most-favored-nation trade status (MFN) for China...
...Gingrich is not the only Republican leader trying to reconcile support for MFN with national security...
...Michael Ramirez...
...More recently, he described the president’s upcoming trip to China as “very inappropriate...
...Whether Gingrich can contain GOP unrest on China is unclear...
...One possible explanation for Gingrich’s move is that he sensed an antiChina rebellion brewing in the House and felt he needed to nip it in the bud...
...It’s doubtful Lott and Gingrich will ever be as intensely critical of the Clinton China policy as some of their GOP colleagues would like...
...But growing numbers of Republicans are questioning a policy of nearblind engagement...
...Gingrich’s support for MFN—proclaimed the day before the ninth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre—drives a wedge between the speaker and many rank-and-file Republicans, who are hungry for ways to zing the White House...
...He’s made some encouraging noises, saying he’s rethinking his past support for MFN and indicating he could support the legislation already passed by the House to stop indefinitely all satellite exports to China...
...So why did Gingrich move to support the White House on MFN so promptly...
...If the president won’t share this information with the Congress on these matters, then he and his administration are guilty,” Gingrich said...
...David Dreier, a Gingrich ally and ardent MFN supporter, concedes there’s “a high level of frustration” with Clinton’s China policy and says it will be “a lot harder” to get MFN through the House this year than in years past...
...They would probably join a serious challenge to Clinton on China...
...If GOP leaders won’t mount such a challenge, who will...
...The same poll found that just 34 percent of those surveyed have a “favorable” view of China, while 52 percent have an “unfavorable” view...
...Newt in the China Shop by Matthew Rees HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH demanded an explanation when the story broke last month that a big Democratic donor, already under investigation for illegally giving military technology to China, got special treatment from the Clinton administration...
...Both passed easily, and his success has emboldened other Senate Republicans...
...His endorsement also threatens to undermine the GOP effort to expose the shortcomings of Clinton’s broader China policy...
Vol. 3 • June 1998 • No. 39
