By June 3, President Clinton must decide whether to ask Congress to extend China’s most-favored-nation status, which entitles imports to low U.S. tariffs. Other U.S. trading partners have MFN permanently, but Congress subjects China’s MFN privileges to annual renewal-and an annual debate over China’s trade practices, arms deals and human-rights violations. Traditionally, China does its best to grease the skids; recent months have seen a flurry of orders from U.S. companies such as Boeing and AT&T. But human rights remains a sticking point. “Americans tend to exaggerate the situation,” insists a high Beijing official who was repeatedly questioned on the subject during a recent visit to Washington.
Unfortunately, there’s no question that many accounts of the forced sterilization of women and of child and convict labor are true. And with the economy growing 12 percent last year and factories struggling under an avalanche of orders, conditions for many workers have gotten worse. Stateowned Capital Steel in Beijing works its employees 365 days a year, and a day off for illness draws a fine. “People are being worked way beyond reasonable limits and then docked if they don’t,” says an engineer at a U.S.-Chinese joint venture.
Just a year ago the leader of a visiting U.S. business delegation said it was “not our business” to discuss human rights with Chinese leaders. But now American executives are beginning to discuss–quietly–the need to develop a set of guidelines. “What we need is a company-initiated code of conduct,” says Roger Sullivan, former president of the U.S.-China Business Council. Sullivan’s idea: Clinton should promise U.S. companies that Washington will stand up for them if they raise humanrights concerns and the Chinese retaliate.
That protection could coax more companies to make a stand. A growing number of companies, like Reebok International and Sears, Roebuck and Co., have adopted human-rights policies binding on their Chinese contractors. Former Occidental Chemical Corp. executive John Kamm, an old China hand with a wealth of contacts, has made a second career of getting students, priests and businessmen released from Chinese jails. And even the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong admits that talking about human rights need not be bad for business; its president recently took the unprecedented step of suggesting that the Chinese allow prison visits by international organizations. Washington’s annual MFN debate has served its purpose well: with billions of dollars in trade and investment at stake if humanrights abuses continue, U.S. business can no longer afford to see no evil.
