In the middle of November, the Clinton administration announced a deal with China over trade that will result in the USA sponsoring China's membership in the World Trade Organization. It will be sold to the American people and to Congress as providing for the opening up of markets, the reduction in tariffs and the loosening of regulations. The agreement which will provide membership in the WTO will transform China because it will open up China and become public and subject to foreign scrutiny, goes the argument. How should we think about this most complicated issue?

First of all, what are the provisions? In tariffs, it will reduce tariffs on industrial products coming into China by an average of 9.4% by 2005. In telecommunications, foreign companies will be able to own up to 49% of Chinese telecommunications when China enters the WTO. In terms of banks, foreign banks can offer services in local currency to Chinese enterprises two years after joining the WTO. For securities, foreign firms will be allowed stakes in securities fund management. China will import 40 foreign films in the first year of the agreement. Finally, textile quotas will be phased out in 2005.

The reality is it will take at least a decade to reach these goals, if ever. A reality check:

1. The agreement will quickly lower the US trade deficit. Fact: Probably the US trade deficit will grow in the short term.
   
   
2. WTO membership will force China to privatize its state-owned enterprises and open telecommunications, banking and insurance markets to American companies. Fact: It will take years to pry open China's markets. Chinese reformers must deal with a government not open to a market economy and wanting to maintain tight control over all aspects of society.
   
   
3. The WTO is the most efficient place to settle international disputes with China. Fact: Hundreds of cases could pour into the WTO, clog the system and support for China and the WTO could disappear. The assumption of the Clinton administration is also that in trade disputes with China before the WTO, the USA would win. But what if that is not the case? In fact, the WTO may not be the most the most efficient nor the best place to settle such disputes.

Why did the US push for this agreement? Clinton's whole approach has been the use of American economic power for strategic ends. That is what the agreement is all about, locking in China's commitment to economic reforms and with it, further opening of Chinese society. This is a most risky strategy for the US because there are no guarantees that this will happen, as my previous point showed. Furthermore, it is very risky for China because increased competition can breed unemployment already a growing problem in China and unemployment can breed political activism. In short, this is a risk for everyone.

Finally, China remains a major persecutor of Christians and this raises the stigma of doing business with a country that is at war with Christianity. Should we be doing business with such a country?

See an article by James V. Feiner man in the New York Times, 19 November 1999.

Back to top

CHINA TURNS INWARD THE FALUN GONG MOVEMENT

The Chinese government is dedicated to wiping out all organized traces of the Falun Gong movement. Why?

First, what is Falun Gong? Since its founding in 1992, Falun Gong has appealed to the older, mature members of Chinese society. It is a mixture of cosmic healing theories, Buddhism and Taoism that promises salvation in a corrupt world through mystical exercises and meditative reflection. In effect, the Chinese Communist Party is terrified by retirees in tennis shoes!! The Party outlawed the group in July 22 but thousands of its core believers have refused to fade away, creating an unexpected crisis and forcing the government to mobilize all its media and social organizations. Why?

1. The first principle in China is preserving the rule of party, which they equate with protecting social stability. For the Communist Party, the greatest threat is a nationally organized force.
   
   
2. Second, the essence of totalitarianism is the total allegiance of every organization and every individual. Followers of Falun Gong give their loyalty to the system and to Master Li, who lives in New York and guides the movement's teachings.
   
   
3. Third, the Communist Party with rising unemployment, anger over official corruption and a showdown in economic growth, feels vulnerable and insecure. The Party likewise worries about the new communications technologies skillfully wielded by Falun Gong on the party's ability to monopolize power an public discourse.

Falun Gong and how the Communist government is dealing with it demonstrates the quandary for opening up its society through the WTO and its desire to preserve its grip on every aspect of Chinese society. Can it do both? I doubt it. Either the government will change and allow greater openness or it will insulate itself and close in on itself again and increasingly become more intolerant. The contrast between Chinese membership in the WTO and the Party's crackdown on Falun Gong is insightful and telling.

Back to top

PRAYER AND SCHOOL FOOTBALL

A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a Texas school district violated the Constitution by letting students lead others in prayer over the public address system before high school football games. Last year the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that the school district's policy of "using student surrogates to deliver prayers before a captive audience" was a deliberate attempt to "circumvent" the Supreme Court's principled but highly controversial 1992 holding that public schools could not invite members of the clergy to lead prayers at graduation ceremonies. The Court then said that " prayer exercises in elementary and secondary schools carry a particular risk of indirect coercion." How should we think about this?

• Texas and 8 other states have petitioned the Court urging it to allow prayer at school sporting events. Earlier this month the House weighed in with a similar resolution.
  
  
• The Supreme Court has never addressed the question of student-led prayers at graduation nor at football games. This is a potentially revolutionary decision.
  
  
• The Court should consider in its deliberation that an after-school athletic event, where attendance is voluntary, is not nearly as weighty as a high school graduation and that the 1992 decision is thus no applicable. The Court has accepted this case at a time of heightened ferment over religion in the public schools across a range of issues, from the question of publically financed computers in parochial schools, to the issue of school choice and vouchers for parochial school tuition.

The Court, it seems to me, cannot rule on football game prayers as violating the first amendment. This is not coercion; it is student led prayer in a voluntary setting. The Constitution certainly protects such activities.

Back to top