Page images
PDF
EPUB

Member on this issue-Ronald Reagan talked about trust but verify, and I think the best export that we have is when we export our values, our values of freedom of religion.

The Catholic Church is of no threat to the Chinese government. I mean, the Catholic leadership that I have met with over there, they pray for the government. They are no threat. They have never spoken out against their government.

The Protestant Evangelical House Church leaders, they are of no threat to that Chinese government.

The Tibetan Buddhists are very meek, very mild. They are of no threat.

It is against the law in Lasa in Tibet to have a picture of the Dalai Lama.

And since you are going to be a leader—are a leader in the Administration and will be speaking out with regard to the issue of trade, I think it is important that the Administration maintain its consistency that it has so far.

And in everything I have heard President Bush say he has talked about he was going to speak out on human rights and religious freedom, but I think we have to be careful because I think the men and women who wear the uniform may very well be facing some of the things that we may very well be selling both to China and what China is selling to Iran and Iraq and some of those countries.

I do not know if you have any thoughts about that, or if you just want to pass and we will go to the next questioner.

EXPORT ENFORCEMENT

Secretary EVANS. Mr. Chairman, I would say a couple of thoughts on this.

One, I would say that in terms of the exports, I will go back to my earlier comment, how important it is to vigorously enforce our laws.

And I was pleased that for the first time in some seven or eight years, I guess we have an Export Administration Act that may be passed this year. And I think it will help us deal with not only the export issue but with some more muscle and more teeth.

And so I am really looking forward to having some certainty regarding our Export Administration laws, and then being able to enforce those laws. As far as I know, my team tells me that we are rigorously enforcing the laws now, and I am not aware of any major issues in that area.

When it comes to China-I totally agree with you and the comments you made that the most important thing we can trade is our values and our freedom. I am one that thinks that goes hand-inhand with free trade and fair trade.

I do think that as we open up the world to trade and we communicate more with our neighbors, they will better understand our free enterprise system and how it works. They will begin to participate in our free enterprise system and they will see economic growth in their own countries. They will also see job creation in their counties. I think that automatically leads to and will go handin-hand with the social freedoms that we cherish.

So, I do not see an inconsistency in free trade and fair trade and being able to use that as a tool to trade the cherished values that we have in this country with all parts of the world.

Mr. WOLF. Well, I was not going to read this. This is the Tony Blankley column. Let me read it. It will be in the record, and I will submit the whole column in the record and I will give you a copy. [Tony Blankley column follows:]

To trade or not to trade

April 18, 2001

Tony Blankley

Now that we have our people back from the Chinese, one of the most talked about questions being raised throughout Washington (and soon to be voted on in Congress) is whether to make China a permanent U.S. trading partner. For those who have concluded that China irrevocably means to be our military enemy, the answer is simple: To contain China and limit her power, we must deny her (as well as ourselves) the benefit of our trade. For others who correctly judge China to be an immoral, totalitarian, religion-persecuting, abortion-forcing malignancy in the family of nations, the only moral response is denial of trade relations.

But the majority of congressmen and senators, while repulsed by China's domestic policies and suspicious of China's strategic intentions, are inclined to make their decisions on the basis of the practical interests of the United States. They will be trying to clarify in their minds the ambiguities of practical policy, rather than morality.

The advocates of permanent trade relations will put to the undecided twin arguments: Trade is good for American business and jobs; and, the more the United Sutes and China trade with each other, the less likely we are to become enemies.

Except for die-hard trade union protectionists, long-proven principles of free trade have demonstrated the economic benefit to both countries who trade with each other, even if the balance of trade is unequal. If the Chinese are willing to sell us a pair of shoes for one piece of green paper with George Washington on it that would cost us $20 to make, American consumers profit. Of course, the trade unionists are right, too. American shoe workers will lose their jobs and have to find another line of work (but the net increase of wealth to America will create more jobs than will be lost).

But it is the second argument in favor of trade relations that deserves closer scrutiny. The second argument for trade is strategic, not commercial. It makes the seemingly obvious point that countries that are prospering by their commercial relations are not likely to disrupt such prosperity to make war.

This argument also assumes that increased economic activity requires more economic freedom in China, which

will lead to more political freedom in China. The third piece of the argument, unstated but implicit, is the anogant Western assumption that as they get to know us and our ways better through mutual economic

imercourse, they will inevitably come to admire and copy our ways.

None of these points are demonstrably true. At best they are suppositions. But they provide the undecided congressman with the warm, hazy, justifying sense that America's pursuit of a buck (a good thing) also can be claimed to serve the more noble goal of our long-term strategic interest. In fact, much of history suggests that not only does trade not provide a path to peace, but that its golden shimmer blinds a nation's eyes to the danger of

war.

Just before the outbreak of World War I, Britain was swept away with the belief that the extensive trade relations between the great powers made war unthinkable. Norman Angell's huge 1910 British best-seller, "The Great Illusion," which argued against increased defense spending, caught the mood of the time: "International finance has become so interdependent and interwoven with trade and industry that political and military power can in reality do nothing."

Unfortunately, Germany wanted the status of a global power more than it wanted continued prosperity. Ten million European young men and a quarter million Americans died because their leaders assumed, right to the last day of peace, that war was unthinkable in a time of such interconnected prosperity. Nor, by the way, did years of German prosperity before the war lead to an increase in democratic processes.

Again, less than a year before the outbreak of World War II, and after Hitler had taken the Rhineland, Austria and most of Czechoslovakia, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain instructed the governor of the Bank of England to offer the Bank of Berlin extensive low interest loans that would encourage the opening of the German economy. Where trade would flow freely across borders, Chamberlain hoped, the Wehrmacht would not. World War II followed with 50 million dead. Other obvious examples where intimate trade relations did not deter war include our own Revolutionary War against England and our own Civil War.

All of these examples of trade's failure involved nations and people who were culturally, historically and ethnically close. Why should we assume, as a basis for strategic policy, that such relations between us and culturally distant China would succeed where it has so often failed under more hopeful circumstances?

The foregoing is not an argument against normal trade relations with China. It is intended as a Scotch verdict on the utility of trade as a path to peace: Not proven. E-mail: tonyblankley@erols.com

Tony Blankley's column for The Washington Times

TRADE FAILURES

Mrs. WOLF. He writes, and I am quoting from the column, he said, "Just before the outbreak of World War I, Britain was swept away with the belief that the extensive trade relations between the great powers made war unthinkable. Norman Angell's huge 1910 British best-seller, The Great Illusion, which argued against increased defense spending, caught the mood of the time. International finance," and he quotes, "has become so interdependent and so interwoven with trade and industry that political and military power can in reality do nothing."

And Blankley says, "unfortunately, Germany wanted the status of a global power more than it wanted continued prosperity. Ten million European young men and a quarter of a million Americans died because their leaders assumed right to the last day of peace that war was unthinkable in a time of such interconnected prosperity. Nor, by the way, did years of German prosperity before the war lead to an increase in the democratic process.

"Again, less than a year before the outbreak of World War II and after Hitler had taken the Rhineland, Austria and most of Czechoslovakia, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain instructed the governor of the Bank of England to offer the Bank of Berlin extensive low interest loans that would encourage the opening of the German economy. Where trade would flow freely across the borders, Chamberlain hoped that the German army would not. World War II followed with 50 million dead.

"Other obvious examples where intimate trade relations did not deter war include our own Revolutionary War against England and our own Civil War. All these examples of trade's failures involve nations and people who were culturally, historically and ethically close. Why should we assume as a basis for strategic policy that such relations between us and culturally distant China would succeed where it has so often failed under more hopeful circumstances?"

And then he says, "The foregoing is not an argument against normal trade relations with China. It is intended as a Scotch verdict on the utility of trade as a path to peace not proven."

And I think we have to be careful. There was a letter to the editor in yesterday's Wall Street Journal with regard to IBM and the Holocaust. IBM was trading with Nazi Germany up to and even during World War II. And I think the difference and I will not mention this too much more-but the difference but I feel passionately about this. Because I have been into the prison and I have seen the people and I have talked to people and I have been with the house church people, worshipping with them. And I have been in Tibet and listened to the monks who told me of that. And I have talked to the people that have been in Tiananmen, and I have talked to the people that have been in Logi. I really do worry that this allure of trade will do it.

EXPORT OF TORTURE DEVICES

As a free trader, it bothers me a little bit, because I did support NAFTA, but I think there is a difference of free trade and yet arm

« PreviousContinue »